The Wizard of Time (Book 1) Read online

  He didn’t know if Ohin would be early, but he struck Gabriel as the sort of man one didn’t keep waiting. As he watched the clock, Gabriel remembered Teresa telling him that there were over four hundred fifty clocks spread throughout the castle. There was even a man whose job it was to maintain and repair all the clocks. Teresa had said it was a job with little time off. She had thought that was funny. Gabriel laughed more at her pouting about him not laughing than at the joke itself. Looking down from the castle clock as it struck seven, Gabriel saw Ohin arrive.

  “Good morning, Gabriel,” Ohin said as he stepped onto the balcony of the tower with a book in his hand.

  “Morning,” Gabriel said, trying to still the tumbling of his stomach. Maybe eggs hadn’t been such a good idea.

  “Are you ready for your first lesson?” Ohin asked.

  “Not really,” Gabriel said, speaking quite literally from his gut, “but if I think about it too long I might freak out.”

  “Well, we would not want that,” Ohin said. “Our first lesson will be a simple one. We will use a relic to travel to several times where that relic existed. Nothing complicated.” As though traveling through time wasn’t complicated, Gabriel thought. “First, you will need to change the way you are dressed.”

  Even as he spoke, Ohin’s clothes shimmered in the sun and suddenly he was wearing a tweed suit with vest and tie. Gabriel thought it looked Victorian, from the late 19th century. “Now, focus your mind on what I am wearing and try something similar for yourself.” Gabriel stared at the clothes Ohin was wearing and focused on the concealment amulet hanging around his neck. He felt the connection with it in his mind and the air around his body shimmered. Suddenly he was wearing an exact duplicate of the suit Ohin wore.

  “What about money?” Gabriel asked.

  “We don’t normally use currency,” Ohin said, “since we try to interact with people as little as possible. However, the castle can make excellent forgeries of nearly any currency we might need for a mission. Now for the relic.” He held up the book so that the cover was visible. Gabriel’s face broke into a wide grin as he laughed. He hadn’t thought Ohin had a sense of humor.

  “H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine?” Gabriel asked.

  “Always good to start the day with a little irony,” Ohin said, patting the book lightly. “To travel to a particular time and place, a Time Mage must have an object from that time and place. Something that has either been made by human hands, or was once alive, like a bone or a fossil. We call the objects we use to travel through time relics.”

  “The St. George’s Chapel,” Gabriel said as something clicked in his mind. “That’s why there are so many antiques from throughout history in the chapel.”

  “Exactly,” Ohin said. “But you can only travel in time and space to where that object has been. This relic is a first edition of Mr. Wells’s novel, published in London in 1895. So, we can use the book you hold to travel to England, but only to places and times where the book resided. That is why we collect so many relics in the chapel.” It made a strange kind of sense, Gabriel thought. It also made sense of the Greek coin that Councilwoman Elizabeth gave him the night before.

  “Now, tell me what you can sense, if anything, from the book. Here, have a seat.” Ohin indicated a small stone bench behind them. As they sat down, Gabriel took the novel from Ohin’s hand and held it gently in his own. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking for, or what he was supposed to feel. Mostly he felt silly.

  “I don’t feel anything,” Gabriel said.

  “Relax your mind,” Ohin said. “Close your eyes and watch your breath.” Gabriel did as instructed. “Don’t try to think about anything. Don’t try not to think. Just watch your breath. If a thought fills your mind, just let it go as you exhale. Still your mind.”

  Gabriel watched his breathing. This was familiar to him, at least. His mother had started meditating nearly four years ago after reading one of her New Age books and going to a seminar at the local library. She had insisted on teaching Gabriel how to meditate, as well. Mostly, Gabriel suspected, because his father had shown so little interest. Gabriel had taken to it quickly and often joined his mother in an evening meditation after dinner. In the autumn and winter, at least. Spring meant baseball and summer meant longer nights for playing baseball. Gabriel didn’t have trouble choosing between meditation and baseball. That was no choice at all.

  Sitting on the Clock Tower bench with Ohin, Gabriel was suddenly grateful to his mother for her insistence that he join her on all those nights of meditating. At first, he could not keep the thoughts from racing through his mind, but as he noticed his attention drifting, he let the thoughts go as he exhaled and refocused his mind on his breath.

  After a few minutes, he began to feel more relaxed. More at peace. After about ten minutes of meditating on his breath, he sensed something different. Not a thought. Not a feeling. He wasn’t sure what it was. It was like trying to remember an event based on the momentary sniff of a once-recognizable fragrance. A feeling he knew, but had never felt before. Strange and familiar at the same time. Then it came to him and he knew what it was and why he recognized it. It was the feeling he had in his dreams of the future. The feeling that would linger with him for moments after waking from the dream. It made him feel fearful and powerful and lightheaded all at once. He slowly breathed the feelings of anxiety out.

  Leather chair. Book cases lining the walls. A small table. A glass of wine. A fireplace, the flames leaping up into the chimney. On the chair. A book.

  Gabriel opened his eyes. “I saw a room.”

  “Really,” Ohin said, a quizzical look on his brow. “What room?”

  “I don’t know. There was a bookcase and a fireplace. And a leather chair. And this book was on the chair. The Time Machine was on the chair.” Gabriel held the old novel up in his hands.

  “Curious,” Ohin said. “I was expecting you’d report more of a tingling feeling, not a full placement vision.”

  “That was one of the places the novel has been, wasn’t it?” Gabriel asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes,” Ohin said. “That room was where the book resided for the first ten years of its existence. It is very unusual that you were able to see it so clearly. And so far back. And so soon. It took me a week to gain my first time-sight of a relic. And even then I could only press back a few years of its existence.”

  “I felt something odd at first,” Gabriel said. “Like what I feel when I have dreams that come true. Will I still have dreams like that?”

  “Probably not,” Ohin said. “Once out of the timeline of The Primary Continuum, your time-sense, which is that feeling you described, is usually useless for prediction. Unless you are back in a specific time for a long enough span of years. There are exceptions. Nefferati for one. But she is very old, and the power did not come back to her for a long time. However, you will be able to sense the flow of time around people and things in the places you travel.

  “Well, now that you have found a destination, why don’t we try a quick visit? But first, one last alteration to our appearance.” Ohin shimmered again, suddenly appearing as a Caucasian man instead of an African, his skin a pinkish white rather than dark chocolate. Gabriel gaped. Ohin still looked like himself, only not at all.

  “We don’t want to appear out of place if we are seen,” Ohin said.

  “You just look so odd,” Gabriel said before he realized what he meant and what he had said didn’t resemble each other at all. Any more than this Ohin resembled the real one.

  “You’ll get used to seeing yourself look different,” Ohin said. “However, I can adjust the attunement of the amulet so that anyone with another amulet will see me more normally, while everyone else will see me as you do now.” Ohin shimmered again, suddenly himself, still dressed in a Victorian suit. After a few moments of instruction, Gabriel made a similar modification to the color of his skin that anyone seeing him might experience.

  “Hand me t
he book,” Ohin said. “but keep your hand on it.” Gabriel did as told. Ohin used one hand to share the book with Gabriel and placed his other hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “In order to take someone or something through time with you, it is best to touch them. There are exceptions, but they are best tried only by powerful and experienced Time Mages.

  “Also, a Time Mage can learn to ghost the movement of another Time Mage through time, to follow them to their destination, even without the use of a relic. That is for another lesson. For now, still your mind again and focus on the book. Try to bring back that time-sense vision of the room with the fireplace and the chair. I am going to move us through time to that place. I want you to pay attention and try to sense what it is I do. Do not watch with your eyes. Just be. There is only you and me and the book and that room.”

  Everything around them went dark and Gabriel felt his stomach turning inside out even as a knife pierced his brain. There was something else, too. A sense of power. Power within himself. No, power outside himself. No, a power that was ever-present, of which he was merely one manifestation. Just as suddenly as the blackness came, blinding white light suffused him and Ohin and the book. Everything bled a brilliant white light. Then they stood in front of the fireplace, the leather chair nearby, the bookcases surrounding them. Only the book wasn’t on the chair, and there was no wine glass, and no fire in the fireplace. Gabriel looked around.

  “Wow,” was all he could say.

  “Exactly,” Ohin said.

  “But the fire is out,” Gabriel said, looking around as he let go of the old book.

  “I moved us to a different day,” Ohin said. “One when I sensed there was no one in the house.”

  “You could sense that?” Gabriel said with amazement.

  “Yes,” Ohin said. “As you approach a particular time, you will be able to sense what is different from one day to the next, how one hour differs from another, one minute from the last. Now, tell me what you sensed.”

  “Between the darkness and the blinding white light there was a power,” Gabriel said. His heart quickened thinking about it. “I can’t describe it exactly, but I could sense this power bending and warping around me and through me. And a pain in my head like a headache, only worse.”

  “The pain in your head will subside a little with each journey,” Ohin said. “It is your brain struggling to process things it was never intended to experience. The power you felt was the energy of an imbued artifact interacting with the fundamental energy of the universe, guided by my own subtle energies.”

  “Magic.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re really in London in 1895,” Gabriel said, staring out the window. Outside the sun was high in the sky and people walked along the sidewalks, horse drawn carriages and flatbed wagons rumbling down the street.

  “Of course we are,” Ohin said. “Now let’s see if you can guide us to some other when and where.” Ohin held the novel out to Gabriel, who placed his hand on the worn cover of the book. Gabriel felt Ohin rest a hand on his shoulder as he closed his eyes and he tried to clear his mind.

  “This time,” Ohin said, “I want you to not only hold a sense of place and time from the book, but sense the energy of my Talisman.” Gabriel felt Ohin place the necklace of seashells on top of the book so that his hand was touching both. It was easier now to perceive the flow of the book’s passage through time. Maybe his time-sense was developing. Maybe Ohin was helping him. Either way, as he focused his attention on the book, he could see moments from where it had been and who had been near it.

  One seemed clearer than the others did. He wasn’t sure when in time the moment was, but there was a beach and a woman was reading the book beneath the shade of a large umbrella, its wooden stake stuffed firmly into the sand. He held that image in his mind even as he reached out to try and sense the imprinted energy of Ohin’s talisman necklace of seashells.

  “When you have a place and time clearly in mind,” Ohin whispered, “hold it as you focus on the power of the necklace. The necklace is like a magnifying glass for your own magical energy. Feel the power within you. Feel the power of the imprints of the necklace. Focus your mind and bring those two sources of energy together. And when you hold them together, focus your will upon that image of where and when you want to go.”

  Blackness descended, and then blinding white light seared through his brain. When it ceased, Gabriel opened his eyes to see that he stood on a beach several hundred feet away from the water, near an overhanging bank of long grass. A woman sat near the water reading a book under an umbrella. She wore a full bathing suit of black with a bit of skirt around the waist. He thought he might have seen something like it in an old movie that took place in the 1920s. Ohin laughed. Gabriel looked up to see a wide, white-toothed smile spread across his mentor’s face.

  “What’d I do wrong?” Gabriel asked, trying to figure out what the source of Ohin’s amusement might be.

  “Wrong!” Ohin said. “Who said anything about wrong? That was brilliant.” He slapped Gabriel on the back. Ohin’s clothes shimmered and he suddenly wore loose cotton pants, a white cotton shirt, and suspenders.

  “Really?” Gabriel asked. He focused on the amulet at his neck for a moment and his appearance changed, as well.

  “Yes,” Ohin said. “I didn’t bring us here, you did. One second I’m talking to you, sensing how you’re manipulating the energy, and the next thing we’re standing here.”

  “So I did it right?” Gabriel asked.

  “Not just right,” Ohin said. “Perfect. You even moved us away from the book so we wouldn’t pop into someone’s view.” That was true now that Gabriel thought back. He had sensed the presence of the woman and willed himself to move away from it. “I’ve never heard of something like it before,” Ohin said.

  “What do you mean?” Gabriel asked.

  “No one has ever made a second jump all on their own,” Ohin said. “It usually takes weeks for an apprentice to learn how to jump under their own power. Sometimes months. You must be a prodigy.”

  Gabriel didn’t know what to say. All he could think to do was smile back at Ohin and laugh along. Him. A prodigy. Of Time Magic. That was too crazy to think about. And wonderful. He couldn’t wait to tell...Well, the people he really wanted to tell he couldn’t. Even if he could find them in time, he couldn’t talk to them. But he could tell Teresa. And Sema and Ling. And Marcus and Rajan. He could tell them.

  “Well,” Ohin said, “Now that you’ve done it once, let’s see if it was a fluke. This time, I want to see if you can take us to a particular moment in time. I happen to know that on August 7th in 1960, this book was in the satchel of a young man watching the movie version of the novel at his local theater. See if you can take us there.”

  Gabriel nodded and brought his attention back to the book and the necklace of seashells. He could not sense a distinct day or year, but the image of a movie theater flashed through his mind. Moments later, at least moments from their perspective, Gabriel and Ohin stood at the back of the balcony of a large movie theater. He recognized the movie projected on the screen immediately. Director and producer, George Pal’s adaptation of The Time Machine. He had stayed up late one Saturday night a year ago and watched it with his father. His father was an even bigger fan of science fiction than he was. It made him smile to remember it. He also smiled because he had just made his second jump through time alone and gotten it right. He grinned up at Ohin, who grinned back.

  They jumped back and forth along the Continuum three more times. First to 1968 in San Francisco when the book was in the pocket of a young hippie dancing in Golden Gate Park. Then back to 1943 when it was in the knapsack of a pilot getting ready to take off for a bombing run across the English Channel. And finally to a bookstore shelf in Manhattan in 2006. The last thing Ohin showed Gabriel was how to move through space, jumping from one end of an empty aisle of books to the other. A Time Mage, Ohin explained, could move through any distance of space as long as they
could see where they were going or if they had been in a particular place before.

  As they stood together in the back of the bookstore, Ohin placed a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “I think that is enough for our first lesson. Why don’t you see if you can take us back to the castle?” Ohin pulled a small orange-brown rock from his pocket. It was a piece of amber. A thought occurred to Gabriel as he looked at the dragonfly suspended within it.

  “How does the council keep the castle safe from the Malignancy Mages?” Gabriel asked. “Can’t they find it with a piece of amber like this or some other relic?”

  “The castle is protected by layers of magic,” Ohin said. “A piece of amber or a relic from that time by itself is not sufficient to reach it. Only a Time Mage who has been there can sense it. You should be able to sense the time placement of the castle when you scan the piece of amber. ”

  Gabriel started to reach for the amber fossil that would lead them back through time to the castle and stopped. There was something else he needed do first. Somewhere and some when he needed to go. If an object could be used to travel anywhere in time it had been, maybe a person could do the same thing. Maybe he could act as his own relic. He reached within and sought with his time-sense for the moment he was looking for, examining his own body as he had the copy of The Time Machine.

  “I need to get something first,” Gabriel said.

  “That would be…” Ohin started to say, but the pitch-black darkness, followed by the blinding white light, cut off his words.

  They stood in Gabriel’s bedroom.

  “...Unwise,” Ohin said, finishing his thought that had been interrupted by decades in one moment. Gabriel’s room looked just as it always did. The small desk, the unmade bed, the bookcase, the stack of comic books and magazines, the baseball and glove on a chair. It was night and the room was dark, but the light of the moon cast enough of a glow through the windows for them to see. Gabriel walked over to the dresser.

  “This is your house, isn’t it?” Ohin asked in a whisper.