Blood in the Fire (Timelaws Trilogy) Page 11

  Anton and Tamer were about to follow, but there was one more thing I needed before they left. I hated to ask this, but I had to know. “Eln and Merador, are both of them safe?” I inquired.

  Anton frowned and searched my face for a moment. “Yes, and we’re even getting some reports of wizard in-fighting, just as Merador promised. It seems a sizable guerrilla group has surfaced within their ranks.” His voice softened. “Don’t you remember?”

  I stared back at Anton and when he didn’t continue, I shook my head no. His lips formed a sad smile. “You said that we could offer Merador and Eln protection. They’ve been moved to a safe-house with the location need-to-know only. Your orders,” he reminded me.

  I nodded and smiled. “It’s a good idea,” I said.

  “It is,” Anton confirmed. “Now, get some rest.” He lingered for a moment, then left.

  “See you tomorrow,” Tamer said, before he followed Anton out.

  I waited to hear the sound of the front door close behind them before I lay back and closed my eyes. My last thought before I succumbed to my dreams was that I had better not fall asleep on Anthe tomorrow.

  Chapter Twenty

  Anthe Tells her Story

  Earth - June 1981

  Elizabeth

  Anthe could have teleported into our living room, but as a matter of etiquette, she elected to use the doorbell. “Hmm, so you’re the reason I’m here,” she accused when Luke answered the door.

  Luke opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Anthe was dressed in her deep purple uniform and a delicate crown of pink and purple crystal feathers adorned her head. Although she was shorter than me, she was robust, and her posture demanded respect. She looked Luke over for a moment and then extended her dark hand to take his.

  “I…yes,” Luke responded, finally finding his words. “I’m just concerned—” He did not notice her offer to shake hands.

  Anthe dropped her arm back to her side. “Good,” she interrupted. “It’s nice to see Elizabeth has people who care for her.” She looked past Luke and extended me a warm smile.

  “Please come in,” I offered. She would have stood in our doorway all day if I had waited for Luke to remember his manners.

  “Thank you,” Anthe acknowledged. She stepped past Luke to where Anton, Tamer, Mark and I were gathered. This morning, I had done what I could to spruce up the house and those of us with uniforms were wearing them.

  “Let’s get down to business, shall we?” She took a place on the couch and indicated with a nod that I should sit next to her. I went to her side.

  “So why do you think I’m here?” Anthe asked. I smiled politely to conceal the inner groan I felt rise inside me. Here we go again. I’d already told her when we spoke that she was here to help us find a way around the Timelaws. However, Anthe must have had an agenda of her own. I respected her immensely, but she took way too much pleasure speaking in pompous, self-indulgent riddles. My sessions with her had been invaluable, except they could have taken a quarter of the time.

  “We need to send a Timelaws-forbidden message,” I replied. “And we thought you might know how.”

  Luke finally realized that our front door was still open. He shut it and walked over to stand by Mark, Tamer and Anton. The four of them crowded closer to the living room, but remained on their feet. In uniform, Tamer and Anton looked like soldiers standing guard. My brothers looked like gawking tourists.

  “Well, I am here, talking to you,” Anthe said in response to my question. “So, clearly, I figured out one way to do it. I don’t think you will like my method though—it is a little long-winded.”

  More riddles. The only explanation was that she trained under Yoda.

  “Wait, are you outside one of your assigned times right now?” Anton asked. Clearly, her puzzles hadn’t worn him down yet. Just wait for it. It would happen.

  “I am.”

  I blinked. Was that a straightforward answer I heard? “That’s wonderful!” I exclaimed. “So how did you get here? What do I need to do?”

  “Your message recipient, they are in the future?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “How far ahead?”

  “About eight hundred and fifty Earth years, give or take a few.”

  “Well then, all you have to do is keep yourself alive for eight centuries and you’ll be able to deliver your message.”

  I slumped. She was joking right? Then I remembered whose presence I was in and corrected my posture. A small, camouflaged smile pulled at the edges of Anthe’s lips.

  Luke took an excited step toward Anthe and me. “Is she serious?” he asked. “Can you keep yourself alive for eight hundred years?” I don’t know what had him so juiced up.

  “In theory…yes,” I replied. “But there are ravaging consequences to your body and mind. It’s painful physically, but emotionally and mentally, it’s beyond exhausting. Akin with torture really. No one ever extends their life by more than twenty percent on the high end.”

  “Oh?” said Anthe. “Well then I guess I must be imagining myself here. What is it that Descartes once said, ‘I think therefore I exist’? Someone should go back and let him know he was wrong.”

  The correct translation was “I think therefore I am,” but it wasn’t the best time to correct her. Instead, I studied her face with intense curiosity. Extending one’s life might be easy when it was as simple as curing a disease or removing cancer. But as time progressed, it became more about repairing mitochondrial DNA, restoring brain tissue, and re-establishing neural synapses. Even the best medical experts couldn’t do that perfectly. With time, emotions, personality and memory all deteriorated along with one’s body. Anthe was so knowledgeable and intelligent. She didn’t show any signs of deterioration.

  “Oh, stop staring at me,” Anthe demanded. “You’re not a ten-year-old boy, and I don't have the first pair of boobs you ever laid eyes on.” If that statement had been intended to snap me out of my shock, it failed. “I didn’t do it all in the same body,” she continued. “There were volunteers who gave me their bodies to use. That helped. It helped a lot really.”

  Okay, mental check to see if I’m feeling any less flabbergasted... Nope.

  “I’m not going to hop from one dead person’s body to the next for eight hundred years,” I blurted. “There is absolutely no way I would do that.” The very concept disgusted me.

  “The person can’t be dead,” Anthe said. “The spell to initiate the transfer has to be cast by both participants for it to work. But the good news is that I have a body prepared for you.”

  “You prepared a body for me? You knew I would ask for this?”

  “Hold on,” Tamer interrupted. “I’m still confused. If you live long enough, you just get to pass along any information you want without being constrained by the Timelaws?”

  “Once she’s outside her assigned time, she’s outside the purview of the Timelaws,” I explained. “We accounted for the option of written messages or even verbal communication passed along from one person to the next. But we never wrote the Timelaws to limit the possibility that someone would outlive their period.”

  “Nice going,” Anton interrupted. I met his eye and smiled.

  “What would you have had us done? Kill someone if they live too long?” I retorted. He didn’t respond. We’d set up the equation to calculate the length of each person’s period by taking the oldest member of their species at the time of their birth and adding 70%. That had seemed more than sufficiently conservative at the time.

  “Once you had outlived your assigned time, could you time-travel to any year you wanted?” Tamer asked Anthe.

  “I can only go forward in time. And only by taking the long way,” Anthe replied. That made sense. It was a provision we’d included just in case someone did survive longer than we anticipated.

  “Okay, now back to my question. You have a body prepared for me?” I asked again. The concept disturbed me to my very core.

  “Actuall
y, you never answered my question,” Anthe countered. “Why do you think I’m here? People gave their bodies, their lives, to make this possible you know.”

  She didn’t need to remind me. “I’m guessing it’s not so that I can send Melissa the information she needs to prevent wizards from winning the war?” I suggested, though it seemed like a pretty good reason to me.

  Anthe sighed. “It’s probably not fair of me to ask you this…” she acknowledged. Finally we were on the same page. But then, Anthe continued, “…without telling you a little bit of the wizards’ history first. Sometimes, I forget how long it’s been and just how much information gets lost with time.” Anthe paused for a moment as though she were reflecting on the wisdom of her own words. “Luke, perhaps you could bring us all some tea?” she asked. “This story will take a while.”

  I don’t remember the last time anyone in my family drank tea, but I’d asked Luke to buy some in preparation for Anthe’s arrival. Anton and Tamer claimed the two remaining seats, thus forcing Mark to accept the floor or Tamer’s lap. To Tamer’s dismay, Mark chose his lap. Anthe ignored their antics and began retelling her tale while Luke brought a pot of water to boil.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Saving Naimi

  The Ori Forest–96th Cycle of the Wizard Calendar

  (Earth Year: 5,320 B.C.)

  Anthe’s Story

  Three days after their journey began, Ketya and Anthe reached the entrance to a cave. All Ketya had learned along their trek was that Anthe was part of an underground movement opposed to the head wizard. She had continued to push for information, but the mysterious woman remained withdrawn. Finally, Ketya asked why Anthe didn’t use her powers to help accelerate their progress through the forest. The only response she received was that the army might try to follow the spell.

  Anthe examined the cave entrance as though she weren’t sure it was the right one. “This is where you have to say goodbye to Naimi,” she announced.

  A shiver ran up Ketya’s spine. “Say goodbye?” she asked. “I’m not leaving her.” Her mouth and lips were still sore from breathing in hot ashes during the fire.

  Anthe stepped back from the rock threshold. “I guess I should have told you sooner,” the elderly woman confessed. “It’s…” The words caught in her throat. She looked away and trailed off. It was late afternoon and the sky had begun to take an orange hue in preparation for first sunset. The colors reflected off Anthe’s beige pupils and made them shimmer auburn and red. She swallowed and returned her gaze to Ketya. “It’s a rather cruel plan,” Anthe said. “It started with burning down your town.”

  “What?” Ketya whispered. “You did that?” A gust of wind picked up.

  “Not alone. But yes, our network is responsible,” Anthe said. She folded her arms to ward against the cold. “It was you or that town, Ketya,” she continued. “Had the people let your child live, the army would have done what we did.”

  Ketya was paralyzed. I’ve been following the woman who killed Brovkyl and destroyed Centream.

  Anthe tried to explain. “We had to make it look like the order came from an army general. By the time they realized the initiative to destroy your town didn’t originate from their ranks, we would be long gone. With you safe.”

  Ketya found her words. “If it weren’t for that mattress and that gust of wind, I wouldn’t be safe. I’d be dead anyway. Brovkyl died in that fire!” This woman was a monster. Rage swelled in Ketya’s heart as she thought of Brovkyl and Rothin and all the others who had perished. Not knowing what else to do, she lunged for Anthe, but the wizard levitated out of reach. With nothing to break her momentum, Ketya landed in the gray dirt. She looked up to see Anthe hovering above. Her white dress flowed in the wind and the glow of the second sun illuminated her silhouette. Anthe looked like an angel, but Ketya hated her.

  “Yes, I moved that mattress into place and blew the door open,” Anthe acknowledged. “I couldn’t do more. It had to look real so the army wouldn’t investigate. If they found traces of magic in your home…”

  Ketya became suspended in the longest moment of her life. “And Brovkyl?” she asked. “Did you do the same for him?”

  Anthe did not respond right away. Instead, she looked on Ketya with pity in her eyes. Please let him be alive, Ketya prayed. Visions of his kind eyes and strong arms flooded her mind. His deep voice echoed in her ears, filling her with warmth.

  Finally, Anthe spoke. “Many of the townsfolk used their powers to survive the attack,” Anthe said. “Not all of them died. But Brovkyl… Brovkyl told me he was willing to do whatever was needed to save his child. For this to work, the army had to believe you were dead. That meant finding wizard remains in your home.” Ketya’s heart dropped. “It will be days before they figure out that those remains aren’t yours,” Anthe finished.

  “I could have outrun them,” Ketya yelled, horrified. Naimi had crawled under Ketya’s skirt to take cover from the wind. Sensing that something was wrong, she let out a short whimper.

  “No, you couldn’t,” Anthe objected. “Not with their powers. And if they knew my underground was hiding you, the full force of the army would have gotten involved. They would have found us.”

  Ketya wrapped her fist around a stone she felt below her hand. It was sharp and heavy. Her arm was tired, but she picked it up and lobbed it at Anthe. Brovkyl deserved to be avenged. Anthe glided away from the rock. Another came at her, but she floated over it and ascended farther away from Ketya’s reach.

  “Stoning me won’t change the past,” Anthe said coldly. “Brovkyl made this choice for his daughter. He didn’t know how we would go about it, but he knew it was his life for your baby. Would you make his sacrifice in vain?”

  Ketya stopped searching for rocks. She stared at the dirt beneath her. Her singed, uneven hair fell loosely over her face, concealing the defeat in her eyes. “Now what?” she asked.

  “I’ve made the location beneath this cave secure,” Anthe said as she returned to the ground. “We’ll guide your body into stasis and hide it here. Millennia from now, you will awaken. Shortly thereafter, it will be time to give birth, and, once the baby is born, you will cast a spell.”

  A whirlwind of questions flooded Ketya’s mind. Why should I go into status? How will I wake up? What spell? She didn’t know where to start, so to quiet the storm in her mind, she stated a simple, obvious truth. “I don’t have powers,” Ketya said. Her eyes did not wander away from the terrain beneath her hands.

  “You’ll borrow some of my magic,” Anthe countered.

  “I might not give it back.”

  Anthe didn’t smile. “There will be someone looking for a body in the very distant future,” she continued. “You’re going to have to provide her with yours. In return for helping her deliver a message, she will take your daughter somewhere where she can be raised with love.” Ketya remained motionless on her knees. “If your child stays here among wizards, they will hunt her down,” Anthe persisted.

  “If I surrender my body, where do I go?” Ketya asked, lifting her head up to face Anthe. Her voice shook with terror and exhaustion.

  “You die. I’m so sorry, Ketya, but it’s the only way.” Anthe lifted Ketya up and pulled her into her arms. “I’m very sorry.”

  “No!” Ketya yelled. “I won’t leave my child alone.” She tried to push the elder away, but Anthe’s grip was strong.

  “They will kill your child if you don’t,” Anthe persisted. “My plan is the only way to save your daughter.”

  Ketya shook her head and pounded her fists into Anthe’s shoulder. “I’ll hide,” she said. “I’ll find a way without you.”

  “No,” Anthe replied. “You will starve or freeze to death before your daughter is even born. Pippons are only around for a season and you don’t know how to hunt.” Ketya wrapped her fists around the elders dress and sobbed into the fabric. This truth was too much to bear, but still Anthe continued. “Even if you do survive the forest, the army will figure out t
hat you escaped the fire and they will find you. Is death what would you choose for your child? I’m the only chance she has.”

  Ketya wanted to fight this woman, but fear that doing so spelled death for her unborn baby defeated her. Gripped in Anthe’s embrace, Ketya was reminded of how Brovkyl held her. Anthe's arms engulfed her small torso and kept her steady as Ketya's body wracked with tears. Her mind whirled with possibilities. Who will raise my daughter? Do I trust this woman? Brovkyl had burned to death to make her plan possible. With each question, a flood of sorrow overcame Ketya. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Anthe was the first to speak again. “We have to send Naimi away now. It will be dark soon, and I want to take her to a cave, her new home, before nightfall.”

  “Don’t touch her” Ketya screamed again. It was too much. She shoved Anthe away and this time Anthe didn’t resist. “I won’t part with Naimi. You said this place is secure. Let her come with us.”

  “We’re going underground, Ketya,” Anthe said. “Once there, you’ll never be able to come out again. Who will care for Naimi? You and I will be in stasis.”

  Ketya’s voice breathed shock. “She can’t live in the woods. She’ll get eaten. She’ll starve. She’ll freeze. Naimi has been domesticated her whole life.” As if to emphasize Ketya’s point, the wind carried the sound of a hungry growl to their ears. Night predators were beginning to rise, ravenous for their first meals of the day. Anthe had used subtle magic to keep them away during the journey, but Naimi wouldn’t have that advantage.

  “She has a better chance out there than she would have locked up with us,” Anthe said. Her tone was soft, but forceful. To Ketya, it sounded cold. Had wizard lore included myths about banshees, Ketya might have believed that the frail elder before her was, in fact, a real live specimen.

  “No. Put her in status too,” Ketya insisted.