“Respect?” Dak blurted. “You wanna talk about respect? Not only are you planning on killing the king, you know now that it could very well mean your kid dies, too. And you’re not going to do anything? What kind of person are you anyway?”
Sera touched Dak on the arm, her eyes down. Riq felt for him, but he also knew there was nothing they could do to change things through Olympias.
“Hey,” Riq said to his friend. “Dude. Just let it go. Come on.”
“Yes,” Aristotle agreed. “It’s plain that dealing with this woman can no longer lead to solutions. Dak. Sera. Riq. Let’s go and gather our thoughts in a place more welcoming than here.”
They started to walk off, and Olympias called out some parting words.
“Never come back.”
They found a little alcove in an abandoned warehouse, where the smell of fish and salt and rotting meat mixed with the scent of flowers that covered the grounds nearby. It all combined into something that wasn’t altogether unpleasant, and for some reason it made Sera’s stomach rumble with hunger. They sat on old benches of stone — cracked and dirty — and tried to figure out what they should do next.
“Look on the bright side,” Dak said. “We’re no worse off than before. Actually, we’re better off in some ways. We still have to stop this Pausanius dude from killing Alexander, which was right where we started. But at least we know that Tilda is out of the picture. Right?”
Sera didn’t think that was much to get excited about. “Yeah, I guess. But now Olympias can warn her man, make sure he’s more careful.”
“But,” Riq said, “that might be good, too. She obviously doesn’t really want to kill her son. Maybe she’ll drive that through the guy’s head: Don’t kill Alexander, no matter what.”
Aristotle was shaking his head. “All excellent points, but I fear you’re missing the most important. Whether or not Pausanius means him any harm, Alexander is now out for the man’s blood. If Alexander defends his father, or avenges him, Pausanius will fight back to protect his own life.”
Dak scoffed at that. “Did you see the way he mowed down all those soldiers out there? Unless this Pausanius guy is Hercules or something, I think old boy Alex will be just fine.”
“Except he wasn’t.” Sera didn’t mean to be flippant, but it was the sad truth that Pausanius had killed Alexander, no matter how great a fighter the heir to Philip might have been. “He died, and there’s nothing to say it won’t happen just like it did in our history books.”
Dak opened his mouth for a retort, but then left it hanging there. She was right, and he knew it.
“So, what do we do?” Riq asked.
Aristotle gave the answer. “It’s quite simple, really. We use your time device to jump ahead a few days to the future, traveling to the camps of King Philip. Once there, we do everything in our power to keep Pausanius away from the hegemon and his son. I still have a lot of sway, I believe.”
Sera liked to hear him sound so confident. “Perfect. That’s about the best plan we can hope for. I just hope they believe us.”
Before anyone could respond to her, a soldier appeared from around the corner, collapsing in a heap right in front of their benches. He was ragged and bruised and bloody, gasping for each and every breath as if his lungs had been punctured. Sera recognized him as one of Tilda’s men. She jumped up in fear but then realized just how weak the man was, not a threat at all. Everyone else had stood up as well.
“Aris . . . totle,” the man wheezed.
The philosopher knelt down by the man, though keeping his distance in case it was a trap. “Yes. What is it?”
“You . . . spared . . . my life.” The man’s face pinched up in pain, and he took several long, struggling breaths. “I want to . . . repay you.” He reached out and opened his hand, where a scroll had been clutched between his fingers.
Aristotle stood up, took the scroll, unrolled it, then read through it quickly. When he was finished, he looked right at Dak.
“When you told me your story, you mentioned something about your parents possibly being in this time period, correct?”
Dak nodded uncertainly. “Yeah, what’s going on?”
“They have the name Smyth, just like yours?”
“Yes!”
The philosopher’s face creased in concern. “An unusual name for these parts, so I can’t imagine it to be a coincidence.”
This time it was Sera’s turn to yell in frustration, Aristotle or not. “Tell us!”
The man complied. “It looks like your Tilda gave us one last blow. If I understand correctly, Dak, your parents have been sent to the front line of King Philip’s upcoming battle.” He slowly shook his head back and forth, even sadder than before. “A place where almost no one survives, I’m afraid.”
A BOMB had just exploded inside Dak’s mind, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with it. He heard the greatest and the worst news ever in a single statement from Aristotle. His parents were evidently alive and well, in the same time period as him. And yet they were sent off to a war that would probably kill them.
“Wait . . . um . . . what?” he said, sure he sounded even more ridiculous than he felt.
The great philosopher looked at him with compassion and tenderness, and had him sit back down.
“Listen to me,” Aristotle said. “If this is true, then I give you my word that we’ll do everything in our power to save them. As surely as we’ll save Alexander and his father. Understand?”
Dak nodded. His chest hurt from the stress and worry. But he stayed quiet and waited for the full explanation. Aristotle continued.
“This is a magistrate’s report from the office of the hegemon.” He held up the scroll and shook it like a flag. “Two people of foreign descent were turned into authorities by a woman and her soldiers. The woman’s name is listed as Tilda, and the . . . slaves as the Smyths. Yes, slaves. Now, hear me out.”
Dak’s eyes had swollen to the size of grapefruits, but he stayed silent.
“Tilda accused them of being runaways and having poisoned their master, a thing I’m most certain that the woman did herself. That’s probably how she obtained these soldiers in the first place” — he gave a weary look to the unconscious man on the ground — “by killing their master and . . . freeing them to work for her. She’s a devious and clever woman.”
“But what does that have to do with the front line of some battle?” Sera asked. Dak was too choked up to ask it himself.
“The report has their plea and the resolution,” Aristotle answered. “At first they were imprisoned and sentenced to death by poison hemlock — the very fate that befell the great Socrates. In exchange for their lives, they were given duty on the front line of the upcoming war against Persia. Hardly a good trade, but better than outright death, I suppose. Hopefully we can get to them in time. I know King Philip will understand and pull them back. I give you my word, Dak. On Plato’s grave, my word.”
Dak looked up at the man, his long beard, his salt-and-pepper hair and eyebrows, his wrinkled skin, his wide shoulders, those eyes that said he knew everything worth knowing. Dak understood why Aristotle would go down in history as one of the great thinkers of all the humans who’d ever walked the earth. There was just something . . . majestic about him.
Dak realized something else then, too. It was one thing to be intelligent — to spout facts and figures and generally act like a know-it-all. It was another thing entirely to be wise. And Dak wanted to be more than just smart.
“Dak?” Sera asked. “Are you okay?”
He broke his gaze from the philosopher and turned it toward his best friend. Sera meant everything to him, as much as his parents. Seeing her, still by his side despite everything, and hearing Aristotle’s words of wisdom — it all did something to lift his heart. It was going to be okay. Everything. A-okay.
“I’m all right,” he finally said, his spirits lifting by the second. “We’re close, guys. We’re so dang close to wrapping this whole busi
ness up. Let’s get to King Philip’s camp, let’s tell him about that Pausanius dude, get my parents back, and warp ourselves back to the nice cozy future we’ve almost finished creating. Who’s in?”
The smile that broke across Sera’s face was more full of relief than anything else, but she put her hand out like a quarterback in a football huddle. Dak put his on top of hers.
Riq rolled his eyes and said, “No way. But I’m in.”
Dak gave Riq a dramatic glare. “Don’t leave us hanging, dude.”
With a sigh, Riq laid his hand on top of theirs, and the three friends gave a small cheer.
Aristotle seemed baffled by their hand gesture, but his expression showed a trace of excitement. “Let’s find some help for our poor soldier here.” The man’s breathing was shallow, but steady. “Then we rest, eat, and make preparations. When we’re ready, we’ll use your magical device to go exactly where we need to go.”
Two days later, Sera stood with her friends — and the philosopher, of course — on a rise that stood above a huge sweeping valley that seemed to stretch beyond the horizon. It was like a city with no permanent buildings: Tents filled it from one side to the other. Cookfires, temporary pens for animals, and storage sheds for food and weapons dotted the scene, and men and women streamed through the valley.
“I certainly never thought I’d come to this area,” Aristotle said, almost reverently. Sera thought she heard a hint of fear in there somewhere, too. “I’ve been receiving reports about the hegemon and his growing army for some time now. But to see it firsthand . . . it takes the breath away. I don’t like to think about what all those soldiers will do when they march across the continent.”
“We’re not here to judge,” Sera said. She’d struggled plenty with her conscience in the course of fixing the Breaks. She still wondered whether she could have done more for the people she’d met. But the consequences of meddling with history boggled her mind. In the end, all she could do was take the Hystorians at their word, set history on what they claimed was the proper path, and hope for the best.
“No judgment, here,” the philosopher replied after a few moments of considering her answer. “I’m just in awe of the power of an army, and I don’t like thinking about what happens during the horrors of war and conquest.”
“I used to,” Dak said quietly. Sera expected him to say more, but he didn’t.
Riq turned his back on the sight and faced his companions. “Let’s just get the job done. We’ve come this far and we’ve done what we were supposed to do. Let’s finish it. Nothing could be worse than the Cataclysm.”
Aristotle made a harrumphing sound.
“What’s our plan of action?” Sera asked her friends. “What do we do first?”
“Oh,” Aristotle replied, “I suspect that we don’t have to do much of anything.”
“What do you mean?” Sera replied.
The man gestured with a nod of the head toward the camp below them. “You’ll see soon enough. Our hegemon didn’t get to where he is today by letting strangers just appear at his camps without explaining themselves. Thoroughly. Watch and see.”
They all turned to face the valley again, and it wasn’t more than a minute later that a group of horses came galloping out of the mass of soldiers and up the dry, grassy hill, their hooves kicking up dust in a cloud.
One of the animals broke away from the rest of the crowd and charged in, the man atop its back dressed in light armor, his golden helm hiding most of his face. But the eyes and mouth made Sera think the guy wasn’t a very happy person. He looked as if he’d run right over them, but he pulled up his horse at the last second, making it rear back on its two hind legs. Then it settled with a loud neigh and the man spoke in a gruff voice.
“You’ve crossed onto forbidden ground. Down on your knees. Now!”
Aristotle obviously intended on taking no such treatment. “Listen to me, young man. We are here to speak to the hegemon. My name is —”
“I don’t care what your name is, old man!” He pulled out a short whip and slashed it through the air, striking the philosopher across the face. Aristotle yelled out in pain, crumpling to the ground.
“Hey!” Sera screamed. “Do you have any idea who that is?”
The man raised the whip again, and Dak and Riq both jumped in front of her, staring up at the fierce soldier. Sera didn’t know if she’d ever seen them do something quite that brave.
The man lowered his arm, but spat, his saliva splashing on all of them. Then he turned to the others who’d come with him. “Tie them up. Gag them. Throw them in the pit. Tomorrow, they hang.”
Then he rode off, leaving his minions to do the dirty work.
EVERYTHING THE jerk of a soldier had said became true, one detail at a time. Dak just hoped that the final order — being hanged — somehow got lost in a loophole. But so far he hadn’t seen any nice genius lawyers in fancy suits walking around.
They had an awful, awful couple of hours after the original soldier disappeared back into the army’s camp. His men dragged Dak and his friends around and stuffed big wads of cloth in their mouths, making it hard to breathe, much less talk. They tied ropes to their bound wrists, then pulled them along behind their horses. Dak stumbled, fell, got dragged, scrambled to his feet, then stumbled and started the whole process all over again. His friends didn’t fare much better. And Aristotle . . .
Seeing what the kind, dignified man went through just about shattered Dak’s heart. They gave him no better treatment, no mercy, no respect. He’d yelled his name successfully a couple of times before the soldiers finally gagged him, and all four of them had moaned and groaned and screamed muffled screams since then. But “Aristotle” and “We’re friends of Alexander” and “We need to save the king” and “I have to use the bathroom” all came out sounding like “Mrrrrph rmmm gurgggggrle rrrrmph.”
It was hopeless.
Tears stung Dak’s eyes as they dragged him over dry grass, dust and dirt, rocks and pebbles, roots and scattered old bones — which he hoped weren’t human. His whole body ached — and his insides felt even worse, watching his friends — by the time they came to a halt at the lip of a giant hole dug into the ground, a roughly rectangular pit in which dozens of people huddled in small groups. Dak saw their terrified eyes, constantly looking up, darting back and forth at the soldiers, probably wondering who’d be the one to finally end their lives.
Dak tried to scream, but it came out as another wimpy muffled moan. He tried to squirm away from the man holding his rope to no avail. He looked at each of his friends — at Sera, at Riq, at Aristotle — hoping that something magical might happen to free them. Desperation and fear boiled in their eyes, as he knew they did in his, too.
The soldiers dragged them to the very edge, then threw them into the pit one by one.
Riq hadn’t cried very often in his life. Not because he was some kind of macho hero dude or anything. He just wasn’t the type.
But something swelled behind his eyeballs, and it sure felt wet. Eventually, to his own surprise, tears trickled down his cheeks. He would’ve wiped them away if his hands had been free, but they were bound tightly with rope. So instead he buried his head into his lap as best he could, and cried a little harder.
He didn’t completely understand why the sorrow racked him so heavily now, of all times. They’d been through plenty of tough days as they’d traveled throughout history, fixing Break after Break. But these soldiers had seemed so harsh. So brutal. So mean. They didn’t discriminate their rough treatment — old man, kids, girl, it didn’t matter to them. Riq was positive that they treated their animals better, especially the horses.
He was so close, yet so far away from winning his war against the SQ. Stuck in a prison pit, ordered to die in the morning, with no way to tell anyone who they were or why they’d come. And even if they did get out of it, what did it matter? Riq had nowhere to go. Dak and Sera would have to leave him behind. Wasn’t he better off dead?
And
that was the kicker. That was the truth at the heart of the despair threatening to swallow him up. Sera had been right. He’d preferred the idea of a hero’s death to trying to imagine life without family, friends, and the Hystorians’ mission.
But he wanted to live. He knew that now. He didn’t want to die in this place.
And so, he curled up into a ball as much as possible, and he let himself cry it all out, not caring who saw or heard.
Sera had enough bumps and bruises to last the rest of her life if she had any say in it. But she probably didn’t have much say, and she had a feeling that more would be coming.
Aching and wincing, she’d scooted away from where she’d landed after being tossed into the pit, and finally nestled her back against the wall, finding the most comfortable position possible — considering her wrists were tied behind her back. The cloth stuffed inside her mouth was awful, choking her and making it hard to breathe. Several times she’d had to fight the urge to throw up from a gag reflex. She could only imagine how pleasant that would turn out.
Settling her body, she forced herself to relax. Something would work out, she knew it. They still had the Infinity Ring, a miracle in itself. Maybe the soldiers weren’t planning on searching them for valuables until they came out of the pit. Or maybe they didn’t care, or doubted they had any. Regardless, Sera and her friends had the Ring. And if she could just get her hands free . . .
She struggled a bit but stopped to catch her breath. She took a long look at each of her friends. Riq had curled up into a ball, and she thought his shoulders shook a little. Was he crying? For some reason that hurt worse than the bruises and scrapes. Dak lay on his side, staring at the dirt, breathing slowly and calmly. Aristotle was next to him, sitting up, staring at the edge of the pit as if he expected King Philip or Alexander to appear at any second to rescue them.
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