The Wizard of Time (Book 1) (35 page)

“Every day for how long?” Gabriel said as he crossed his legs in imitation of Ohin.

“For years,” Ohin said. “That is why few mages are able to cultivate and increase their inner magical energy to any great degree. But the greater the energy you have to focus through your talisman, the greater your magic can become.”

“Will I be able to do magic without a talisman?” Gabriel asked. It was the only question he was really interested in.

“With a great deal of practice, yes,” Ohin said. “But you will never be as powerful without a talisman as you are with one.”

“But I may not always have a talisman handy,” Gabriel said, remembering all the days in Kumaradevi’s palace when he would have done anything to be able to perform magic without a talisman.

“As we have seen,” Ohin said. “Now, clear your mind. Settle your thoughts. Watch your breath. Just as you learned.” This part of the training was familiar and easy. Well, not easy necessarily, it took a few minutes to get his mind to stop jumping from one thought to the next like some drunken monkey, but eventually he could concentrate clearly on his breathing. While it was easy to still his mind quickly to use magic, keeping it still and focused on his breath was much more difficult.

“Now reach within and sense the flow of your subtle energy,” Ohin said. This too was familiar and easy. He did it every time he used magic. “And now as you sense that flow of energy, I want you to imagine it flowing down into you from above, and up into you from below, the two waves of energy meeting at your heart center. Remember, they are not flowing into your physical body. They are flowing into the subtle energy matrix that is expressed as your body. As these two waves of energy meet, they swirl and multiply, flowing back up and down your body, radiating throughout your entire being, every cell, every muscle, every pore, filled with and radiating this energy.

“With each breath in, the energy flows into you from above and below, increasing at your heart center. With each breath out, the energy flows throughout you. If you find a tightness in your chest, pause for a moment and imagine your body dissolving into light. Imagine it as a body of energy-light. Then resume.”

Gabriel did as Ohin instructed and felt the energy flowing through him with a power he had never sensed before. Magnified and increased, the energy radiating through him felt pleasing and powerful. And the more smoothly the energy flowed, the more effortlessly he could concentrate his mind, the energy flow and his mind melding together and seeming to become one.

“Now you may relax your mind and let the energy return to normal,” Ohin said. A moment later, Gabriel opened his eyes.

“I could feel your energy,” Ohin said, “so, I know your practice was successful. Could you feel mine?”

“No,” Gabriel said, surprised that he would even be expected to.

“We will try to add that next time,” Ohin said. “How did it feel?”

“Powerful,” Gabriel said. “Like I had this great clarity.”

“Yes,” Ohin said. “This practice will help with focusing your mind and eventually with seeing the energy in all things, the interconnectedness of all things through that energy, and ultimately, the lack of separateness of all things.”

“But when will I be able to do magic without a talisman?” Gabriel asked.

“The energy feels more powerful than it is,” Ohin said. “While even a small amount of practice will yield some increase in the magical effect when using a talisman, it normally takes a few years before the magical energy has been increased enough to use without one.”

“I see,” Gabriel said. “I don’t think I could have kept that concentration for more than a second in a fight.”

“Exactly,” Ohin said. “But eventually, if you persist, you will be able to. Now it is time for your walk with Sema.”

“Thank you for teaching me this” Gabriel said as he and Ohin stood up. He knew it was unusually early in his training for such advanced lessons.

“Thank you for coming back to be taught,” Ohin said, placing a firm hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “You are important to us, to me, for many more reasons than the magic you can do.”

“I feel the same way,” Gabriel said, swallowing hard to keep the ball of emotion in his throat from rising up too far.

Sema greeted him with a wide smile as he approached the others. She broke away from them and guided him on the familiar walk through the grounds. Sema decided that they should continue their daily talks to help Gabriel deal with his time in the hands of Kumaradevi. Now instead of talking about his family or his friends left behind when he died in the bus, they talked mostly about his experiences in the dark palace and what they meant to him. As before, Sema did little of the talking, preferring to ask questions and wait patiently for Gabriel’s answers.

After their walk, Gabriel and Sema joined the others to continue their training. They were all impressed with how much he had learned in Kumaradevi’s arena, but unlike his Malignancy Mage tutors, they were each more than willing to give him tips and pointers and help him correct mistakes with encouragement.

After lunch, he had a private lesson with Akikane, who began to teach him the basics of how to wield a sword. Gabriel was chagrinned to find that this began with learning stances and postures and the philosophical essentials of Aikido and that flailing around with a wooden blade was frowned upon. Gabriel needed only one frown from Akikane to set him straight. Learning to use a sword was not child’s play, and it would not involve playing with swords. Swords were never to be played with. They were not toys, but tools. Tools for concentration in the right hands, and tools for death in the wrong ones. Akikane insisted that Gabriel’s hands would know the difference and how to use a sword properly, without bringing harm and causing negative imprints.

The afternoon, and any free time after dinner, was spent learning about Alexander the Great and trying to pinpoint likely battles that Apollyon could use the negative imprints from to increase his magic and hide the branches of time he was creating to copy himself. They studied not only the facts of Alexander’s life, but cultures and customs of Macedonia, Greece, and the many lands he conquered. They even learned a few words in Ancient Greek from a Wind Mage named Hestia who had lived a hundred years before Alexander. Many of the team members already spoke a little Greek, but Ohin insisted that everyone have enough words to manage in case things went horribly wrong.

Gabriel struggled to keep all the facts straight. Focusing on just Alexandros, as his name was pronounced in Greek, and what he had done, was much easier. Born in 356 BCE to Philip II, the king of Macedonia, and his fourth wife, Olympia, Alexander was thirteen when the famous philosopher Aristotle became to be his tutor. His father was assassinated in 336 BCE, and Alexander assumed the throne. Shortly thereafter, he began a campaign of conquest through Egypt, Persia, and India. Within ten years, he had defeated all of the major armies of the known world and became the ruler of nearly every land he passed through. In 326 BCE in Hyphasis in India, his troops refused to continue fighting, and he was forced to retreat. He died three years later in 323 BCE after falling ill at a celebration. Those were the bare facts, filled in by a long list of battles in places with names like Granicus, Gaugamela, Tyre, and Issus. Gabriel found himself returning frequently to the timelines in his copy of
The Time Traveler’s Pocket Guide to History
.

The training went on like that for five days, practicing magic and combat skills, studying history, and preparing for the long journey. Ohin estimated that it could take as much as a week to thoroughly search each battle, which meant they could be traveling a few months. Of course, they could return to the castle when necessary, but they needed to carry provisions that would allow them to stay away for several days and nights. Apollyon was just as likely to use the imprints of a battle after it was over as while it was taking place.

Rajan and Marcus each carried a tent, one for the men and one for the women, and everyone had bedrolls and backpacks filled with beef jerky, dried fruit, cheese, bread, and water. They also each carried a small first aid kit in the event that Marcus or Akikane were not on hand to help heal injuries. Although Gabriel was making progress learning from Marcus, he was still, thanks to his days in Kumaradevi’s arena, much more proficient at creating damage in a body with Heart-Tree Magic than healing it. They also each carried several relics of the time so that if they were separated, Ohin, Akikane, or Gabriel, could get them to another location or back to the castle.

On the morning of the sixth day, they gathered in a corner of the courtyard of the Upper Ward, each appearing as though they were dressed in local ancient Greek clothes. The men were dressed as commoners, with leather sandals, skirts of wool, and loose fitting, short-sleeved cotton shirts. The women wore draping, toga-like dresses that fell off their shoulders and flowed to their ankles. Gabriel found himself trying not to notice Teresa’s soft brown shoulders. If she caught him trying not to notice, she gave no sign of it.

Elizabeth arrived to wish them well and send them off with words of inspiration. At least Gabriel hoped they would be words of inspiration. She seemed none-too-happy that morning, although he suspected this was because he was accompanying the team on the mission. He hoped she wouldn’t change her mind and try to force him to stay. She could change her mind, but he wasn’t about to change his. He saw that Nefferati was with her, as well. He had not seen her since the dinner the first night back and had assumed she had departed for her retreat already. She didn’t look very happy, either. Maybe they were back to arguing.

“I wanted to wish you all a successful mission today,” Elizabeth said. The silence of the other team members spoke to how rare an occasion it was to receive a sendoff from the head of the Council. “Take care of each other as you take care of business.”

“And don’t do anything stupid,” Nefferati added, looking directly at Gabriel.

“Well, we’ll have to change our plans now,” Rajan said under his breath. Gabriel wasn’t sure if Elizabeth or Nefferati heard him, but they both frowned just the same.

“Well, that’s it,” Elizabeth said. “Good hunting.”

“And good luck,” Nefferati said.

“Well said, well said,” Akikane said. “Now we go.” Akikane touched his sword and smiled as he gave a short wave to Elizabeth and Nefferati, a Greek coin held between his thumb and forefinger. Then the familiar blackness of time travel surrounded them, followed by the whiteness that signaled a jump through space and time.

Chapter 24: Alexander the Terrible

The Chimera Team sat in a circle around a small campfire. Gabriel sat next to Teresa, the Sword of Unmaking lying in the grass beside him. Akikane had entrusted Gabriel to carry the sword both because it would teach him responsibility and because it would mean he had access to a very powerfully imbued artifact if he needed a talisman in the event something went wrong. Gabriel usually wore it slung it over his shoulders with a strap because he was too short yet to wear it at his waist. Teresa had giggled the first time she saw him with it, but no one had said anything.

Rajan and Ohin roasted apples on sticks over the fire. As they rotated the apples in the flames, they played a game of
Go
, the ancient Chinese game of strategy. Players placed small black and white stones at the intersections of cross-hatched lines on a wooden board. The object of the game was to accumulate territory and eliminate your opponent’s pieces.

Watching them play, Marcus carefully sliced a roasted apple into sections with a knife, placing the pieces on a small tin camping plate. When he finished cutting, he drizzled honey over the apple slices and sprinkled a little cinnamon over them from a copper tin. Stabbing one of the apple slices with the tip of the knife, he passed the plate to Ling, who grabbed a slice and tossed it in her mouth, her eyes going wide as she spit the apple slice back into her hand, bouncing it up and down.

“Zhĭzé!” Ling exclaimed, blowing on the slice of apple. “That’s hot!”

“What’d you expect,” Marcus said with a laugh. “It’s a roasted apple. They tend to be warm.”

“You could have warned me,” Ling said as she took a wary bite from the slice of roasted apple and passed the plate to Sema, who carefully took a piece with her fingers.

“I’ll blow on the next ones to cool them down for you,” Marcus said as he grinned and bit into the apple slice skewered by the tip of his knife blade.

“It’s interesting how much Apollyon and Alexander resemble each other,” Gabriel said, blowing on a piece of roasted apple as he passed the plate to Akikane. They had been watching the two on battlefield after battlefield for several weeks now and Gabriel had noticed how much Cyril, as Apollyon was called then, modeled himself on his leader, Alexander. The two even looked a little alike.

 “He’s a little more dangerous than Alexander the Great,” Ling mumbled, apple in her mouth. “And his copies of himself are a more dangerous army than Alexander ever hoped to command.”

 “Can he really manage to get the copies of himself to follow with the same devotion of his mages?” Rajan asked as he stared into the fire. “Will his philosophy of power work as well on a group of copies as it does on other Malignancy Mages?”  They had repeatedly debated this question around the evening campfires.

Every night the same questions came up and they went through them again. Ohin promoted it as a means of looking for pieces of information and ideas they may have missed. They all knew that once they found and severed the branches of time Apollyon was using to create copies of himself, it would only signal the beginning of a new battle, not the end of the war.

“It’s hardly a philosophy,” Sema said.

“Balderdash is more like it,” Marcus added as he sliced another apple.

“Let’s look at it again for weaknesses,” Ohin said. He always encouraged them to look for weaknesses as part of creating a long-term strategy. He and Akikane had begun insisting that they play games like
Go
and
Chess
to develop their sense of strategy. Rajan had added
Chaturanga
, the Indian precursor to chess that up to four people could play. Ohin placed another white stone on the
Go
board and looked up. “Gabriel, why don’t you summarize Apollyon’s philosophy for us?”