The Wizard of Time (Book 1) (22 page)

“She left the Council and the castle because she wanted no more part in the war,” Elizabeth said. “She said she could not live with the actions she felt she had no choice but to take, and so she went away. When she departed, we had words.” Elizabeth did not attempt to elaborate on what those words might have been, but Gabriel assumed that if she wasn’t going to accompany them to find Nefferati, the words probably had not been pleasant.

“But how can I convince her to help?” Gabriel asked.

“Because of the prophecy,” Ohin said.

“Nefferati is the one who made the prophecy of the Seventh True Mage,” Elizabeth said. “Meeting you may convince her that it is time to return to the Council and the war.”

“We hope, we hope,” Akikane said.

Silence surrounded them for a moment. Ohin broke it by standing up. “We should meet the others for breakfast,” he said. “Then we will leave.”

“I will meet you in an hour by the Great Oak,” Akikane said, standing.

“And I will await your return with good news,” Elizabeth said, remaining seated.

Gabriel found it hard to concentrate on breakfast. He couldn’t think of food when he knew that in less than an hour he would be meeting the most famous mage of all. He found himself staring around the Waterloo Chamber absentmindedly instead of eating his porridge.

“I wonder what she’ll look like,” Teresa said, taking a bite of an apple muffin.

“Old,” Marcus said, buttering his second slice of bread.

 “Will she help, though?” Rajan said around a mouthful of eggs.

“Of course she will,” Sema said, taking a sip of her favorite Turkish coffee.

“She damn well better,” Ling added, biting hard into a cranberry scone.

“More important than what she will do, is what we must do,” Ohin said, wiping his chin with a napkin. “I want to make sure that two of us are close to Gabriel at all times.”

“How close?” Gabriel asked. He was beginning to resent being treated like a fragile child.

“As close as possible,” Ohin said, staring Gabriel down. “Councilman Akikane will be joining us, and I doubt we will have anything to worry about with Nefferati present, as well, but I want everyone to spread out and assume defensive positions when we arrive.”

Which is exactly what they did twenty minutes later when they met Akikane in the Horseshoe Cloister and he took them through time to the edge of a clearing in the middle of northwestern China just south of a place that would one day be called Beijing, somewhere near the year 12,000 BCE. Gabriel stared at a small hut in the center of a clearing of low grass. Marcus moved to the right, Sema to the rear, and Ling left, making sure the clearing was safe. Rajan and Teresa stayed near Gabriel while Akikane and Ohin strode toward the hut.

A gentle breeze rustled through the wild grass of the quiet clearing, the sun high and hot in the cloudless blue sky above. Gabriel guessed it must be midsummer. Marcus and Ling moved to the edges, circling to the back of the hut as Ohin stepped up to the wooden door. He paused a moment and then knocked. There was no reply. He took a moment to look through a small window at the side of the hut.

“Empty,” he said.

“Nothing in the back,” Marcus said as he and Ling reappeared from behind the hut.

“Just a table, a goat, and a few chickens,” Ling added.

“Where could she be?” Akikane wondered aloud. “Where could she be?”

“Picking berries,” a sharp, low voice said from the edge of the forest. A tall, thin African woman with a halo of near-white hair stepped from the trees, branches rustling around her. She wore a simple gray cotton dress and carried a bucket of red berries. She crossed the grass in long graceful strides, ignoring the party of mages as she walked behind the hut and disappeared around the back. Everyone looked around at each other in confusion. Except Akikane.

“Same, same,” Akikane said. “Nothing changes.” Akikane walked around the hut and the others followed.

When Gabriel came around the edge of the hut, he saw the woman who he assumed must be Nefferati sitting on a stump at the head of long, crudely hewn wooden table pouring small red berries from a simple wooden bucket into a shallow clay bowl.

“Don’t just stand there with your mouths open drawing flies,” Nefferati said, “sit down and have some berries.” She popped one into her mouth.

Slowly, Gabriel and the others sat on the benches around the table, each reaching into the clay dish and drawing out a berry. Gabriel sat between Rajan and Teresa at the far end of the table.

“Now,” Nefferati said, “let’s skip the usual polite manure about how happy everyone is to meet me and get to the point. Why are you here, Akikane?  And since when do you need an entourage?”

“We are here because we need your help,” Akikane said. He still smiled, but it seemed strained for the first time since Gabriel had met him.

“Really,” Nefferati said. “And here I thought you came for the berries.”

“This is Ohin and his team,” Akikane said, gesturing to those seated around the table. “Marcus, Rajan, Gabriel, Teresa, Ling, and Sema.”

“Names I will soon forget,” Nefferati said.

“Not likely, not likely,” Akikane said.

“What are you playing at, Akikane?” Nefferati said as she snatched a handful of berries from the bowl.

“Apollyon,” Ohin said, interjecting himself into the conversation.

“What about him?” Nefferati said. “Not my problem. He’s the Council’s problem now. Speaking of which, where’s my famous apprentice? Couldn’t find the time to call?”

“She has a council to run,” Akikane said.

“Too busy, my bony butt,” Nefferati said.

“Apollyon is making copies of himself with bifurcations,” Ohin said. He kept his eyes on Nefferati. She eyed him back.

“Interesting,” she said finally. “But how is that my business?”

“We are having trouble locating the point in the timeline where Apollyon is creating the branches,” Akikane said.

“And you thought to drag the old woman out of her hole to help,” Nefferati said.

“We hoped, we hoped,” Akikane said.

“Your war, your business,” Nefferati said. “Berries are my business now.”

“Things have changed,” Akikane said.

“Same Council, same ideas, same war,” Nefferati said. “Nothing changes.”

“The Seventh True Mage has been revealed,” Ohin said. Nefferati raised her eyebrows and stared at Ohin.

“True, true,” Akikane said when Nefferati looked to him.

“Who? Where?” Nefferati asked.

“Him,” Ohin said, gesturing toward Gabriel. Gabriel met Nefferati’s gaze as she snorted.

“A boy!” Nefferati said.

“The Seventh True Mage, even so,” Akikane said.

Nefferati fell silent as she stared at Gabriel. All other eyes were on her, but she didn’t seem to notice. “What’s Apollyon playing at, making copies of himself?” she said finally.

“We believe he is trying to acquire the power to destroy The Great Barrier,” Ohin said.

“Hmmm,” was all Nefferati said.

“Will you help us?” Akikane said. “The entire Continuum is at stake.”

“That’s what they always say when they want something,” Nefferati said. “The Council,” she added, clarifying what she meant. “I’ll think about it. I want to talk to the boy first.”

“Of course, of course,” Akikane said.

“Alone,” Nefferati said. She still stared at Gabriel. He tried to stare back, to match her gaze, but eventually he broke away to look at his teacher. Ohin nodded to him, and Nefferati stood up.

“Nothing to fear, boy,” she said as she saw the nervous look on his face. “I’m not a cannibal, just an old woman. Give me your arm. I know a nice deer path we can follow.” Gabriel looked behind him at the table of his companions. Akikane was smiling, as ever, while Ohin squinted, whether from concern or the sun, Gabriel could not tell. Marcus gave an encouraging nod of his head, and Teresa gave him a thumbs-up gesture. He took Nefferati’s arm and followed her into the forest.

They walked along a thin dirt path that meandered through the trees. The scent of pine filled Gabriel’s nostrils and reminded him of his grandparent’s farm. They had planted pine trees along the edge of the fields, and his grandmother and he would collect the pine needles each Autumn to boil them down for homemade cough syrup. Although she appeared as old as his grandmother, her face wrinkled and sun-worn, there was nothing remotely grandmotherly about Nefferati.

“Where did they find you?” Nefferati asked, pulling a branch aside so they could pass.

“In 1980,” Gabriel answered, assuming she was referring to the time more so than the place.

“Close to the Barrier, then. How old are you?”

“I’m thirteen-and-a-half,” Gabriel answered.

“A man in some cultures.”

“I suppose.”

“And Ohin?”

“My teacher. For Time Magic.”

“And you’ve been trained in the other magics, have you?”

“Not yet. Akikane is going to be my primary teacher. And the rest of the team will help.”

“The serial repeater and that slack-jawed lot sitting around the table? Fat lot of good they’ll be, teaching you magic.”

“They’ve done well so far,” Gabriel said with a slightly defensive tone. Whatever had made Nefferati unhappy all those years ago seemed to have kept her unhappy.

“And who’s teaching you to use the dark imprints?” Nefferati said.

“No one. I don’t want to use dark magic,” Gabriel said, remembering what it felt like to touch the imprints of the Scottish sword and the Aztec pyramid.

“I suppose Queen Elizabeth supports this foolish notion,” Nefferati said with derision.

“We haven’t actually discussed it,” Gabriel said. “I made the decision on my own.”

“How the hell do you expect to fulfill the prophecy of the Seventh True Mage if you don’t use dark magic?” Nefferati asked.

“I thought I had fulfilled the prophecy,” Gabriel said.

“Only the first part, boy,” Nefferati said. “The easiest part.” Nefferati glanced behind them. “Do you have a talisman yet?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said, looking behind. He wondered what was living in the forest they walked through. Were there people nearby?  It seemed unlikely, but it would be just his luck to run across some ancient Neolithic Chinese hunting party and inadvertently create a new timeline.

“Let me see it,” Nefferati said, holding out her hand. Gabriel dug in his pocket and retrieved the silver watch, placing it in Nefferati’s outstretched palm. She looked at it and sniffed. “Is that it?  No others?  Nothing hidden in your sock for emergencies?”

“No,” Gabriel said, realizing as she spoke that it might not be such a bad idea to keep a spare Talisman handy. Sema, at least, had more than one talisman.

“Good,” Nefferati said taking one more glance behind them at the path leading back to the hut. They had walked nearly half a mile while they talked, and Gabriel could not even see the hut through the trees any more. As he looked back from the trail behind them, he saw Akikane standing in the path ahead. Nefferati saw him as well.

“Release the boy,” Akikane said, drawing his sword from the sheath strapped to his waist in one silent and elegant motion.

“You always were the quickest one of the lot,” Nefferati said, taking a small coin from a pocket of her dress. “But not quick enough.” Then the all-too-familiar blackness surrounded Nefferati and Gabriel and her hand clutched at his arm like a vise. Gabriel didn’t understand what was happening. He barely had time to struggle when the whiteness overtook everything.

They stood in a field near an ocean. Gabriel tried to break free of Nefferati’s grip, but it was useless. She was incredibly strong for someone so aged. The blackness followed swiftly by the whiteness again, and they stood outside a ruined castle. Nefferati jumped again. And again. Gabriel lost count and began to get dizzy. It was much more difficult to make repeated jumps as a tagalong rather than as the Time Mage doing the jumping. Finally, they came to a stop in the middle of another forest. The trees were thicker this time. And taller. Oak and hickory, Gabriel thought as he looked around. It seemed like it must be midday, but very little light fell through the canopy of the trees.

“What’s going on?” Gabriel shouted as he finally broke free of Nefferati’s gasp. He stepped back several paces as she released him. “What are you doing? We didn’t come to hurt you!”

Nefferati laughed. Then her body began to morph, her skin changing color, the shape of her face altering, her hair becoming long and straight and night-deep black. Gabriel stared in shock. Several seconds later, he was looking at an Indian woman nearly half a head shorter than the woman she had been a second before. She had a thin face with a strong jawline and deep set eyes. She smiled ominously at him. “They could not hurt me if they tried,” the woman said, her dark brown eyes filled with a mixture of contempt and pleasure. “I wonder how that old Japanese fool figured it out. No matter. He will not be able to follow us where we go next.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Gabriel said, beginning to suspect the full implications of what had just happened and exactly how much danger he was in. “I know who you are.”

“Well, at least they’ve taught you that much,” the woman said. “But your education will be under my supervision from now on.”

“What do you want?” Gabriel asked.

“I have what I want,” the woman said. “And it is time we were gone.”

“I won’t go with you,” Gabriel said.

“Oh, I think you’ll do exactly as I say,” the woman said. “Now sleep.” She waved her hand before her, and Gabriel felt his eyes flutter and his mind fade to blackness.

Chapter 17: Palace of
Light
Darkness

The fog of sleep slowly dissipated, gradually replaced by greater and greater clarity until one thought finally managed to solidify in Gabriel’s mind.

Kumaradevi.

That thought brought him to full consciousness in an instant. He kept his eyes closed and pretended to still be sleeping, listening for any sign of where he might be and what might have happened to him. He was lying on his back in a bed, it seemed, with a heavy blanket drawn up to his chin. The glow on the back of his eyelids told him there was light entering from somewhere, possibly a window. He could hear nothing except his own breathing, which had quickened its pace considerably since he regained his senses.