“Only when I don’t catch you at it,” Ohin said. “You know bringing things back before they are supposed to be destroyed can be risky.”
“It is unlikely that a single barrel of ale is going to be missed by anyone in England,” Marcus said. “Regardless of the time period it comes from.”
“Was it an important artifact?” Gabriel asked, the sarcasm barely noticeable in his voice.
“The boy has it exactly,” Marcus said. “They told me you were quick.”
“Marcus thinks every barrel of ale is an important artifact,” Rajan said.
“And flagon, and pint, and tea cup, if it has ale in it,” Teresa added.
“Well, who knows what imprints a good aging barrel might have on it?” Marcus said.
“Maybe you should take one as a talisman,” Ling said.
“Don’t tempt him,” Sema added.
“I just might,” Marcus said in feigned defensiveness.
“I’d like to see you carry that around your neck,” Teresa said with a giggle.
“You know he would if he could,” Rajan said.
“You see the way of it now, don’t you, Young Gabriel?” Marcus said, the look in his eyes mixed equally between mischief and wounded pride. “They all turn on Old Marcus the first chance they get. He who heals them when they are sick. He who comforts them when they are low. And yet they would separate me from one of the few comforts I am allowed.”
Everyone except Ohin laughed. Gabriel found himself laughing, as well. Even though he had only just met these people, Gabriel did find himself enjoying their company. Part of him wanted to be sullen and fume about his circumstance, but everyone’s good-natured banter brought him out of the shell he wanted to climb into and curl up in. There would be time for the shell and the sullenness later that night. When he was alone. Right now, there were exciting new people to learn about and an exciting new life to uncover. That thought led him to what he seemed to do best today.
“So...” Gabriel began.
“Pay up,” Teresa said to Rajan.
“You don’t know what he’s going to say,” Rajan said.
“Yes, I do,” Teresa said.
“I’ll pay when you have proof,” Rajan said.
“Who’s paying for what?” Ohin asked
“Rajan and I have a bet about what questions Gabriel will ask next,” Teresa said.
“To which, I insist that we hear the question before you pay me,” Rajan.
“You’re such a gallant loser,” Teresa teased.
“So what is your question?” Ohin asked Gabriel.
“What do the Malignancy Mages want?” Gabriel asked, feeling his stomach tighten a bit as he realized that all eyes at the table were on him. “If we’re fighting them in a war, what are we fighting over? How do we win?”
“See,” Teresa said. “Pay up.”
“That should hardly count,” Rajan said, taking a rabbit’s foot from his pocket and handing it to Teresa. “That was far more than one question.”
“You’re right, it’s not fair.” Teresa pocketed the rabbit’s foot. “I feel terrible for you. Would you like to bet on how fast he learns to make a jump by himself?”
“Pass,” Rajan said. “Only one rabbit’s foot.”
“Those are very good questions,” Ohin said. “Especially in light of the attacks last week on the Hiroshima Outpost.”
“Last week?” Gabriel said.
“Time travel,” Teresa said.
“Last week for me,” Ohin said. “I have been gone for nearly seven days in my personal timeline. To answer your question, the Malignancy Mages wish to control the Primary Continuum and all of the stable alternate branches of time.”
“And to destroy the Great Barrier,” Ling added.
“It depends on which one you run into,” Teresa said. “They’re a very confused bunch.”
“What’s a great barrier?” Gabriel asked, still trying to process the idea that Ohin had been away for a week in the last few hours.
“The Great Barrier of Probability,” Ohin said. “Time travel is possible anywhere along the Primary Continuum until you come to the Great Barrier. Suddenly, for reasons we cannot explain, once you reach the year 2012 on October 28 at four forty-five in the afternoon Greenwich standard time, you can no longer travel forward in time. Nor has anyone ever traveled back from after that time.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Gabriel said. He hated math, but he loved science and he had spent hours reading books about space and astronomy. “Time moves at different rates depending on the mass nearby. It gets warped by gravity. So time moves slower on the sun than it does on Earth. Or you could travel really fast, like at the speed of light, and even if it only took you a few hours, it might be years enough to cross the barrier. Or what about other planets? A barrier like that couldn’t exist. Especially not on other planets. It just doesn’t make sense. Does it?”
“No, it doesn’t make sense,” Sema said. “It always gives me a headache thinking about it.”
“Cross-dimensional synergistic probability matrix,” Teresa said around a bite of blueberry pie.
“You are right that it doesn’t make linear sense,” Rajan said. “But that is why it is called the Great Barrier of Probability. It exists in all probable circumstances.”
“We’ve approached it in every branching timeline we know of,” Ohin said, “and the result is always the same. The Barrier exists at the same relative instance in time everywhere in the universe and in all the branches of the Primary Continuum.”
“The only way to cross it is to live through the time just before it,” Marcus said. “But once it becomes four forty-six, there’s no going back. Two Time Mages tried and were never heard from again.”
“So who created this Great Barrier?” Gabriel asked, pressing for more information.
“We have no idea who created it,” Ohin said. “Or why. Or even how it might be possible. We suspect a large circle of Time Mages created it. Mages can link their energy in a circle to multiply their power and we can only imagine that it must have taken a hundred or more Time Mages to accomplish something of this magnitude. As to why, we have no idea.”
“Possibly to protect the past from something in the future,” Rajan suggested.
“Or to protect the future from us,” Ling said.
“How would it protect the future?” Gabriel asked even as the answer occurred to him. “Bifurcations! If the Great Barrier separated the past and future, no matter how many branches are created in the past, the future of the Primary Continuum after two thousand twelve will always be safe.”
“That is one of the theories about The Great Barrier,” Ohin said, looking Gabriel in the eyes with something the might have been pride. “And it is the one that most Time Mages subscribe to.”
“But then what are the Malignancy Mages fighting for?” Gabriel asked. “How do they hope to control the Primary Continuum?”
“Any object, or place, or even person, can carry the imprints of positive or negative actions associated with it,” Ling added. “And mages can draw power from those imprints just as they do with their personal talisman. All they need do is establish and maintain a connection with the object.”
“For instance,” Ohin said, “a battlefield can carry far more imprints, both negative and positive, than a sword or a dagger can. By establishing a connection to such a place or artifact, a mage can attain great power. Connections are made with magical artifacts called concatenate crystals.”
“Like Hiroshima,” Gabriel said. “That’s what the outpost was protecting against.”
“Exactly so,” Marcus said, raising his glass with a smile. “And speaking of the outpost, when do we return to the field? Not that I haven’t been enjoying our reprieve from the front lines, mind you.” For emphasis, he emptied his glass in a single swallow, grinning at Sema, whose face had become set in a frown.
“Soon,” Ohin said. “First, though, I want Gabriel to get a taste of time travel and at least a rudimentary feel for doing it himself.”
“Fitting him for his time-travel training wheels,” Teresa said, amused with her metaphor. No one but Gabriel seemed to get the joke. “Like on a bicycle,” she explained, with a sigh. Gabriel guessed that not all jokes translated through time, even with the help of the magical amulets around everyone’s neck. He had one on a silver chain around his own neck now. Sema had made it for him and given it to him. Gabriel pulled his mind away from the thoughts of the amulet and back to what Ohin was saying.
“Until we resume our missions,” Ohin said, “everyone will maintain their training and study regimen. Gabriel will join us as time permits.”
“Was that an intentional pun?” Teresa asked.
“What?” Ohin said.
“Oh, you’re all hopeless,” Teresa said, but she noticed Gabriel grinning at her and smiled back. Gabriel dug into the last piece of blueberry pie as the conversation continued to spin around him. He’d asked enough questions for one day and received far more answers than he really wanted. Answers that only led to more questions. Questions that he wasn’t sure he really wanted the answers to. He decided that the best thing he could do just then was to continue stuffing his face with pie. There would be time for more questions later. There would always be time, Gabriel thought with a grin as he bit into the pie.
Later that night, Gabriel sat on a bench at the edge of the Upper Ward courtyard looking up at the stars and wondering about his future. Sitting in the far past wondering about the future that would be his personal past, a past that he could go and see from a distance, but never again be a part of. His personal future was in no particular time and place. Everything was different now. Even the stars in the past were different, the position of the constellations changed completely by the slow processional tilt of the planet. He could still make out the belt of Orion, although it was not where he was accustomed to seeing it in the night sky.
He was glad to be alone. Someone had been with him nearly every moment since he had woken from death. Keeping him occupied. Showing him wonders and filling his head with facts. It was nice to have a moment to think about where he was and what it all meant. And to think about his family.
It occurred to Gabriel again that although he was the one who had died that day of the bus accident, in some ways, it was as if his parents had died instead. They were alive in their time, but he couldn’t risk seeing them. Not really seeing them. He might be able to glimpse them from a distance someday, but he could never sit and talk to them. Never touch them. Never feel their arms around him. He felt the tears run down his cheeks as he thought about his parents. About his sister. About his friends. It was like the whole world had died and he alone had survived. They were gone and he still remained. And if what Ohin and Marcus said was true, he would remain for a very long time. He, who died first, would likely live longer than any of them.
He wiped the tears from him face. It felt good to let them out. To feel the pain of his loss. He knew these wouldn’t be the last tears he'd shed for the loss of his parents and sister, but he felt a little better. And after all, he wasn’t dead. He was alive. And more than alive. He was a Time Mage. Well, not yet. But he would be. And when he was...
The sound of someone walking along the fine gravel path encircling the courtyard reached his ears. Gabriel used the back of his white linen sleeve to wipe the rest of the tears from his cheeks. Looking up, he saw an elderly women approaching. She had short-cropped gray hair and pale gray eyes that complemented her alabaster skin. She was short, but not exceedingly so. It made her seem heavier than she was. She smiled as she approached.
“I see I am not the only one enjoying the stars this evening,” she said in a crisp British accent. That meant she really was British. Gabriel had learned that when someone spoke using the amulet to translate for them, the voice he heard in his head was always in his own Midwestern late twentieth century accent. If they had a different accent, they were speaking English.
“I’ve never seen the stars so bright,” Gabriel said.
“I’m not surprised, considering when you were born,” the woman said. “You were taken from the late twentieth century, yes?”
“1980,” Gabriel said. “I was born in 1967.”
“A short time,” the woman said. “Too short. Do you mind if I join you?”
“Sure,” Gabriel said, sliding over on the bench to make room.
“My name is Elizabeth,” she said, extending her hand. Gabriel shook her hand. Her skin was soft, but her grip was surprisingly firm. Now that she sat next to him, he noticed that she smelled like lavender. Then something occurred to him.
“You’re Elizabeth Palfrey,” Gabriel said, his eyes widening a little. “You’re the head of the Council.”
“Found out,” Elizabeth said with a wink. “I had hoped for a little anonymity for a while. I so rarely find any these days. Unless I’m traveling. I wanted to come and meet for myself the newest member of our little community.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel said. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Piffle,” Elizabeth said. “It’s totally self-serving, I assure you. Hardly anything I do is just to be polite. There is always a second intent, hidden or otherwise. The unfortunate side effect of being mistress of the manor.”
“You don’t seem to like being in charge,” Gabriel said, stating what seemed obvious before realizing that it might be rude to do so.
“Very discerning,” Elizabeth said. “No, I am not particularly fond of being the head of the Council, but someone has to do it, and the best qualified person has gone off to search for the meaning of her existence and the other possible candidate refuses to accept the mantle, so that leaves me.
“In all honesty, between the two of us, I’d much rather be spending my days on a beach with a good book. I know the perfect beach. A little Greek island called Samos. There is a beautiful town there. Lovely people. Amazing food. Epicurus lived there until he was eighteen. I met him once. Not what I expected. But we do not always get to choose the life we wish to lead, as I’m sure you are coming to realize all too well.”
“Tell me about it,” Gabriel said with a sigh.
“I just did. Honestly, twentieth century English phrases make little sense to me. So many of them seem redundant.”