The Wizard of Time (Book 1) (11 page)

“The entire temple is imprinted, isn’t it?” Gabriel said as they walked behind Ohin to the sanctuary of Huitzilopochtli.

“Yes,” Teresa said. “Any place with this much murder would have to be.”

“But then why don’t the Malignancy Mages connect the crystals to the temple, or to other places?”

“Sometimes they do,” Ling answered. “But a temple is much easier to track down than a dagger.”

“This temple has been connected to and severed from at least six times that I know of,” Chimalli added.

“Gabriel and Chimalli, inside with me,” Ohin said. “The rest of you stand guard. Teresa, if you would join us to provide some light, please. Leave any relics or artifacts, besides your talismans, outside with Rajan. They can interfere with the severing process.”

“Sure,” Teresa said, handing Rajan a small statue and the rabbit’s foot from a pocket of her dress as she stepped into the sanctuary. Suddenly a warm glow came through the doorway. Gabriel, Ohin, and Chimalli handed Rajan their relics.

When they stepped into the sanctuary, they saw that Teresa had created four tiny balls of fire which floated in the corners of the small stone chamber. The back of the room held a stone idol of Huitzilopochtli, the walls painted with murals depicting stories of the god’s exploits and the many sacrifices to him. In the center of the room was a small stone hearth for fires to burn sacrificial offerings. Along one wall was a low stone table with various ritual implements laid out across it, such as clay bowls, polished skulls, and five sacrificial daggers. Three of the daggers had long black edges of chipped obsidian that Gabriel knew were sharper than most steel blades, while two were fashioned from flint. The daggers had different handles, each carved from jade in the shape of an animal, such as a jaguar, a snake, or a bird. Gabriel could clearly sense the imprints of the daggers now.

“So the Malignancy Mages connect to the imprints of the dagger with a contaminant crystal?” Gabriel asked. Teresa giggled behind him

“A concatenate crystal,” Ohin corrected him in a gentle tone. “Like this one.” Ohin pulled a miniature crystal globe from his pocket and handed it to Gabriel. The crystal was a small, two inch wide ball of milky white glass. “Concatenate means ‘to link in a chain.’ That is an inactive crystal, waiting to be linked. A time mage can link the imprints of an artifact or a place to the crystal. Crystals can also be linked together.”

“The more links in the chain,” Chimalli added, “the more powerful the magic you can perform.”

“Up to seven,” Ohin said. “No chain of concatenate crystals can have more than seven links.”

“Chrono-quantum entanglement degradation,” Teresa said, almost absentmindedly from the back of the room.

“Can you sense which dagger has been linked to a crystal?” Ohin asked.

As Gabriel reached out with his magic-sense to the daggers, his eyes widened a bit and he looked up to Ohin.

 “All of the daggers have been linked to a crystal,” Gabriel said.

“Someone has been very busy,” Chimalli said.

“And someone else will be busy now,” Ohin said. “I’ll sever the first one, the one we came for, and then Gabriel can try his hand at one of the others.” Ohin choose a dagger from those on the table and carried it to the far side of the room, away from the other ritual objects. Gabriel followed him.

“Now watch closely. With your magic-sense, not your eyes.”

Gabriel calmed his mind and focused on the obsidian dagger in Ohin’s hands. He could sense the tendril that connected it to a Malignancy Mage’s concatenate crystal, stretching through time and space, linking the two objects together. He could also sense the magical energy rising in Ohin, focused through the necklace of seashells hanging on his chest. Gabriel felt the magical energy leap out from Ohin and surround the dagger in a tight sphere. He could sense the thread connecting the dagger to the Malignant concatenate crystal flickering around the blade, trying to find a way through the shield of magical energy that Ohin had encased it in. Then Gabriel sensed the thread connected to the imprints of the dagger begin to fade. Then it was gone. Ohin released the shield of magical energy around the dagger and looked at Gabriel.

“Do you think you can do that?”

“I think so,” Gabriel answered, wondering how difficult it would be to duplicate the magic Ohin had performed. Chimalli handed Gabriel another dagger from the table. Gabriel stilled his mind and focused on the magical energy within himself as he took out his grandfather’s pocket watch.

He focused the energy, allowing it to build before reaching out to the imprints of the pocket watch. Then he extended his magic-sense and felt for the thread connecting the dagger of chipped and polished volcanic glass to a concatenate crystal somewhere in time. As he felt the thread, he willed the magical energy flowing through him to surround the dagger in a shield of magical power. The magical space-time thread from the dagger winked out of existence, and the glass of the dagger blade cracked in half with a loud pop. Gabriel winced and looked up at Ohin.

“Next time, a little less magical energy,” Ohin said with a frown.

“Too much energy and you might damage the object you’re trying to sever,” Chimalli said as he grinned at Gabriel.

“He’s trying to be the Superman of Time Mages,” Teresa said. “He doesn’t know his own strength.”

“Why don’t you try another one?” Ohin said. “This time try to sever the connection gently. Like you were snipping a rose bud from the stem. Not as though you were trying to cut it off with an axe.”

Gabriel took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders and tried again. He realized that even though the concatenate crystal that the dagger was connected to might be anywhere in time, severing the connection between them did not require all that much magical energy. It was more like trying to smother a candle flame by placing a snuffer over it, rather than blasting it with a fire extinguisher. When he had finished, he looked to see Ohin smiling again.

“That’s more like it,” Ohin said. “Now why don’t you replace Rajan on watch? We’ll need him to repair this broken blade so there will be no chance of a bifurcation of time taking place. I will finish the other two daggers. You can enjoy the view.”

“It’s a lovely view,” Chimalli said, his voice a mix of sadness and irony. “When I lived here, few people saw the view from the top of the temple and lived to tell about it.”

“Just try not to look at the heads on racks at the bottom,” Teresa said from the corner. “Spoils the view.”

“Right,” Gabriel said, “I won’t look down.” He stepped out of the sanctuary to the top of the temple pyramid. Sema, Marcus, Ling, and Rajan stood silently at the four corners of the pyramid watching the sky and the city for any possible disturbance. It was unlikely that Malignancy Mages would appear, but there was no need to take chances. The others nodded silently to Gabriel as he stepped over to Rajan.

“How’s it going inside?” Rajan asked.

“I broke one of the daggers,” Gabriel admitted, his voice cracking with embarrassment.

“Bit of a butter fingers, are you?” Rajan said.

“I didn’t drop it,” Gabriel said, a bit defensively. “I accidentally used too much magical energy when I severed the connection and it shattered.”

“I guess you don’t know your own strength,” Rajan said.

“That’s what Teresa said,” Gabriel replied.

“Well, great minds think alike, and so do ours. Don’t tell her I said that. I’ll go see to the dagger. Just keep an eye out for anything unusual.”

“Like standing at the top of an Aztec temple in the middle of the fifteenth century isn’t unusual,” Gabriel said.

“You know what I mean,” Rajan said. “Keep an eye out for magic. And hold these.” Rajan handed Gabriel the small pouch with the artifacts he had collected from Teresa, Ohin, Chimalli, and Gabriel. As Rajan walked into the sanctuary, Gabriel looked in the pouch and saw, among other things, the shard of pottery Ohin had used to travel back to the temple and the small chunk of amber with the dragonfly suspended in it that would take them back to the Windsor Castle in the Cretaceous Period one hundred twenty-five million years ago. He put the pouch in his pocket.

Gabriel stood where Rajan had looked out over the Aztec city. Lights from oil lamps, small fires, and torches dotted the cityscape, the moon reflecting off the lake surrounding the stone metropolis. Fires burned at the tops of the other temples, giving the city an even greater sense of size.

Gabriel marveled. It really was stunning. The organization, the planning, the execution of the design, and all accomplished without a single piece of modern machinery. He wondered what the reaction of the first Spanish soldiers must have been. He thought about finding Manuel when he got back to the castle and asking him.

Then he noticed something that felt like magic. Not from the city spread out before him, but from behind him. From the temple sanctuary where Ohin was. Something not quite right. Something that his time-sense said was all wrong. As he looked back at the sanctuary doorway, there was a flash of red light.

He ran toward the sanctuary entrance even as the light faded away. Sema, Marcus, and Ling had seen the light, if not felt the surge of magical energy. He didn’t think they could have sensed the disturbance of space-time the way he had. At the doorway, he found the sanctuary empty. Ohin, Chimalli, Teresa, and Rajan were gone. Sema reached the sanctuary as Gabriel stepped inside.

“What’s happened?” Sema said as she walked past Gabriel. The small fireballs Teresa had set floating in the corners of the sanctuary had vanished. Only dim moonlight illuminated the chamber.

“There was some disturbance in the fabric of space-time,” Gabriel said. “I could feel it even from outside.”

“A trap,” Marcus said from behind. “A bloody trap.”

“Maybe something went wrong with severing the connection to the dagger,” Sema said.

“Tăoyàn de! Ohin would never leave without us,” Ling stated as she pulled a hand-cranked flashlight from a pocket in her dress. Gabriel heard a click, and the white light of the flashlight flicked around the room. It looked just as he had left it.

“He couldn’t travel anywhere,” Gabriel said, pulling the chunk of amber from the pouch in his pocket to show them. “I’ve still got his relic that leads back to the castle.”

“How many blades were there?” Marcus said as he pointed to the stone table with the sacrificial daggers. Ling swung the light of the flashlight to the low set table.

“Five,” Gabriel said, seeing that there were now only four.

“It was a trap,” Sema said.

“How?” Gabriel asked.

“I don’t know how it works,” Ling replied, “but I know that relics and artifacts can be enchanted to take someone through time against their will.”

“But then where are they?” Gabriel asked.

“They could be any place in time that dagger was,” Marcus said.

“We need to get back to the castle,” Ling said. “You’ll have to take us, Gabriel.”

“No,” Marcus said. “Not back to the castle. Not yet.”

“Why the hell not?” Ling growled.

“Because this trap wasn’t likely to be random,” Sema said.

“Someone at the castle has turned colors,” Marcus said.

“Then where the hell do we go?” Ling said, anger making her face flush.

“There’s something happening outside,” Gabriel said before Marcus or Sema could answer Ling’s question. “Someone is traveling through time.” He could feel it clearly now. They ran for the door in unison.

They rushed out of the temple top sanctuary, each scanning the city and the temple. Gabriel saw a cluster of four people standing at the base of the temple stairs. He knew they were mages even at a distance. He could feel the magical energy they held. His hopes rose for a moment, imaging that the Council had sent a rescue party. The magical energy felt different. Odd. Unlike the energy he was used to sensing. Then he realized it was because these were not mages sent by the Council to take them back to the castle. These were Malignancy Mages.

“Him,” Sema said.

“I should have bloody known,” Marcus cursed.

“Jiànhuò!” Ling spat.

One person stepped forward from the four. All were dressed in black, but this one was taller than the others were. He had long black hair and, although Gabriel could not see him perfectly, he knew by description who stood at the bottom of the temple; it sent a cold chill down to his stomach. “Apollyon,” he said in a whisper.

In unison Ling, Sema, and Marcus extended their arms. One of the men grabbed his head and crumpled to the ground, another pitched back through the air, and a third went rigid and was suddenly immobile. Gabriel knew his companions were casting magic at the Malignancy Mages below, but Apollyon seemed unaffected.

Suddenly he stood at the top of the temple only a few feet before them. Gabriel and the others staggered back. It happened so quickly, Gabriel barely sensed the distortion of space-time before Apollyon completed his jump. He stared at them with contemptuous dark eyes. Gabriel could see now that he was an extremely handsome man, of Greek descent, with sharp features and an even sharper intelligence radiating from his eyes.

“Pitiful,” Apollyon said. “How is your newest Time Mage to learn with such shoddy examples? Allow me to instruct him.” Apollyon raised his hand and a crimson fireball the size of a watermelon burst into existence and leapt directly toward Gabriel. His first impulse was to jump through space, and he reached for the magic energy within him, but he was too new to magic, and there was no time to jump through space to safety, no time to duck; there was barely time to raise his hands. Somehow he did. He raised his hands as he reached for the magic within.

The fireball stopped just before it hit him, hovering, frozen in midair before his open palms. It didn’t make sense, and he could see the look of shock and surprise on Apollyon’s face, but Gabriel didn’t wait for explanations. He focused his will on the fireball, and it shot back through the air toward Apollyon. The black-clad man was so surprised by the turn of events that the fireball burst around him. While Apollyon was stunned and stumbled back down the steps of the pyramid, Gabriel could see that the impact of the fireball had little other effect. He felt hands on his shoulders as Marcus pressed a stone with a small, round hole carved in one side into his right hand.