Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Page 15

  He hoped he would be the one to kill Arthur in the coming war.

  They’d awakened late, missing the morning bathing ritual, and they’d descended upon a village already bustling with post-bath activity. He marveled at the population growth and physical expansion that had taken place since he’d left Elizabeth with the bag of zirple root. He saw rows of cottages set away from the protective walls, back-to-back and side-to-side, setting up what amounted to small streets of homes inside the village walls. They’d pushed the large protective wall at the far end of the village, furthest away from the gate, back at least twenty feet to handle the growth. They’d added another oven and erected workshops, food storage, space for various tools, and more.

  He also noted that they’d put small signs above each building. His mother had once told him how they’d eventually welcomed a resident who knew how to read and write, and that person began the slow process of teaching the largely illiterate village their letters, using the signs to teach them the words they knew best: their names. Though some of the letters looked little like their modern counterparts, and though some words were spelled differently, he found he could read most of the words he saw. Of note was the appellation on the large storage room near the gate.

  ALIO INCREMENTUM SCHOLA.

  Six years hence, the sign would shatter, and his father would rearrange the chunks of letters to form a new word.

  ALIOMENTI.

  Genevieve’s blue eyes were wide and her mouth hung open as she took in the scene below. She’d somehow accepted as fact that she was floating above the heads of the people she lived with, watching them live their lives, and that none of them had noticed her.

  In her mind, there was only one explanation. “I’m dead. That’s why I’m in new clothes. That’s why I’m flying and watching everyone. I’m already dead.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not dead, Genevieve.” He floated them toward the gate end of the village and toward the barn and paddock area—also expanded in size since his last visit—and pointed. “Look.”

  Genevieve looked. She saw her teenaged daughter—now as tall as her mother—chucking old straw over the wall behind the barn, one slow shovelful at a time, and he watched her mouth curl into a faint smile. The sight of her daughter never failed to increase her level of happiness.

  Then she saw herself, and her smile vanished. She spun on him—seemingly unaware that she shouldn’t be able to spin in the air like that—and he knew she’d grab him and shake him if she could. “Who is that? Who is the woman working in my paddock?”

  He didn’t turn his gaze away, looking her squarely in the eye. “That’s you.”

  “But…” Her mind tried to work it through. He’d told her she wasn’t dead; he might be lying, though for what purpose she couldn’t fathom. She knew she was herself, but yesterday she couldn’t fly around invisibly, nor did she own any clothes like what she wore at this moment. She’d also never met the strange man who’d stolen her from her bed at night without waking anyone up and carried her to a strange room up in the sky. Nothing about her situation made sense. Her eyes, still feisty, refocused on him as she asked the obvious questions. “How? Why?”

  He considered his answer. “The answer to ‘how’ is probably something you’re not ready to hear yet, even considering…” He waved his hands, motioning at the bustling village below them. “Even though you’ve experienced things already this day that you never dreamed possible, the ‘how’ is something you’ll come to understand in time.” He paused briefly. “As to the why? This is happening to prevent you from being murdered later today.”

  She stared at him. “Oh, that makes perfect sense. It’s not that I’m not dead, I’m just not dead yet.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m having a terrible, terrible nightmare.”

  “In no dream you’ve ever had, have you experienced anything like this, nor have you imagined anything like this while awake.” He offered a faint smile. “You know you aren’t dreaming. You’re still not convinced that I’m telling the truth, are you? You still think you’re dead. But that’s not true. What else could it be?”

  Her eyes narrowed, then widened. “Magic. You have… you have magic?”

  “It’s not magic in the sense most think of it, but if you’re asking if I can do what your daughter can do, then yes, I have magic.” He paused. “As to why? Your daughter needs you alive, Genevieve. That’s why.”

  Genevieve glanced down. “But… if I’m here… how can I be… there?”

  How to explain that? “You’ve seen books before, right?”

  She nodded, then pointed toward the Schola. “We have some in our Schola building. I’m learning to read. Do you know how to read?”

  “I do, but that’s not relevant here. Is there only one Bible in the world, Genevieve?”

  “No, there are many.”

  “Because someone took an existing Bible and read the words, and then copied those words onto new parchment. Each new Bible is copied from the original. That means two people far away from each other can both see the words and read them at the same time from two different books.” He watched understanding dawn on her face. “I made a copy of you. The woman you see working in the paddock is the copy. And I assure you that later this day, that copy of you will suffer a brutal attack and die.”

  She stared at him. “How do you know that?”

  “I just… do.” He knew it sounded like a parent explaining things to a child, but had no better option just yet. She was taking this far better than he’d expected. Or perhaps she was acting, and she didn’t understand as well as he thought she did. Perhaps she was ignoring what he said until she could trick him into telling her the truth, whatever she might think that was. “And because I know, I acted.”

  “If you knew that I would be…” She swallowed. “If you knew, why make a copy so that the murder still happens? Why not take me away?” Her eyes flicked toward Elizabeth. “Why not take her away with me, to remove us from the danger? If you have magic, if you can fly and not be seen, if you have a room in the sky… why not take us both away and save my life that way?”

  He sighed. “If only it was that simple.”

  ~~~32~~~

  1015 A.D.

  His answer did little to satisfy her. But he could sense her growing acceptance that he knew things she did not, that he did not seem interested in using his power to do her or her daughter harm… and that if he did, there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  Sobering thought, indeed.

  It was that reality—that a well-trained Energy user could do as they wished against a “normal” human—that drove Alliance and Aliomenti alike to extensive, often decade long observation and interviews of potential recruits before allowing newcomers into the world of Energy. For those without the character necessary to use gifts with restraint, Energy was a danger indeed. While he believed the true motivation for such research differed between groups—the Alliance, because to impose one’s will against an unarmed Energy opponent was immoral, the Aliomenti, because an uncontrolled Energy user brought the risk of exposure to them all—both recognized the need to deal with the recruiting errors without hesitation or remorse. Adam had been there when they’d found an Aliomenti using her powers in an abusive manner, and he’d helped terminate her life. Word came back through rumor channels that the Aliomenti were, grudgingly, thankful for their action. Rare though it might be, such exploitation of power was always possible, and it was the reason he’d refused to force Genevieve’s acceptance of his trustworthiness.

  Because if he forced her to accept it, he wasn’t trustworthy.

  They spent much of the day in silence, watching the oddly mesmerizing synchronized village activity unfold below them.

  She’d interrupt the silence with periodic questions. Some he’d answered—he called the mechanism for his power Energy, not magic; he thought Elizabeth’s progress was quite impressive given the lack of training by a more experienced Energy user—and other
s he’d declined to answer, but he always explained why. He sometimes didn’t know the answer. Often, he told her there were other lessons she’d need to learn first before he could answer the question she’d asked.

  She accepted his excuses for the most part, but kept asking one question repeatedly, refusing to accept his evasions.

  Why, if he knew she’d be murdered, did he not stop the murder in some fashion? Why not take her and Elizabeth away? Why not kill the murderer first?

  He deferred for a time before opting to test her ability to handle a larger truth. “I know about the murder that happens later today because I normally live many years into your future. In that future, I am good friends with Elizabeth, who is a grown woman. She often talks about the horrible day when her mother died before her eyes and how she wishes she could see her mother again, and have her mother see her and what her life is like in that future time. We learned how to travel to our past and then return safely. I had the ability to come to this time and take you back with me to your daughter.”

  She recognized in the story that he’d changed tactics at least, and in follow-up questions she found his story remained consistent. She knew that meant she had two competing realities: that he was lying and a very good storyteller, or that he was telling the truth. A lie was an easier reality. But her eyes flicked up toward the room in the sky she could no longer see. She saw her copy walking around, acting as she herself would act. She glanced down at the ground, accepting that she floated well above the ground. She wasn’t visible to her neighbors, and none of them acted as if they could hear her.

  She finally realized that, given the impossible things she’d seen, logic suggested that he was telling the truth. Or believed he was. “I don’t know if I believe your story yet. I don’t know if I even understand your story.” She paused. “But… thank you. If your story is true—and I’m not saying I believe it yet—but if your story is true, it must be scary to tell someone.” She arched an eyebrow. “I might think you’ve gone mad.”

  He smiled.

  She frowned. “I’m still not sure if you’ve explained why you just don’t stop my killer from acting. It seems like… a lot of extra work to make a copy and let it die.”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t answer you before because you didn’t know enough to understand the full answer. But you do now.”

  She looked confused, but motioned for him to continue.

  Best to use an example. “Let me explain it this way. Arthur has not been the best of husbands. He has treated you poorly, and has been a wretched protector of Elizabeth. Is that a fair assessment?”

  Her face paled and her eyes widened. She couldn’t speak, but he saw the tiniest movement of her head, a faint nod of agreement.

  “If you could go back in time, back before the two of you ever met, and could make sure that you would never meet the man… would you do it?”

  “Yes.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “But if you never met Arthur… what happens to Elizabeth?”

  He sensed in her mind the fact that it wouldn’t matter, because Arthur wasn’t Elizabeth’s father. But she’d gotten the point. “You’re telling me that if I don’t actually die today… that something bad will happen in the future?”

  “Or something good won’t happen. It’s one of our rules of time travel. We can’t change what’s already happened. We can make sure something we know happened in the past does happen, because it’s the reality that shaped our present. It’s not an easy requirement, and we avoid traveling through time because the temptation to fix something is so powerful.” He grimaced. “One of my friends found himself in a time where a war was about to start, and he knew he could stop it. If he stopped it, an immense number of people wouldn’t die in the fighting.”

  “But he didn’t stop it.” She didn’t seem convinced it was the right decision.

  “He didn’t stop it, and it crushed him emotionally, because he felt that every war death was his fault.”

  “Weren’t they?”

  “No. They’d died in his past before he knew he could travel through time. If he’d gone back, he would be changing his present, and possibly preventing himself from being born.”

  Her eyes blinked rapidly. “I have no idea what that even means.”

  “It means time travel should be avoided unless you can stay away from having to make decisions like that. It probably means that time travel should be avoided without exception.” He sighed. “Let me put it this way. If I have evidence that preventing your murder would lead to Elizabeth dying within a year, rather than growing up and getting married and having children, would you want me to stop it?”

  Her eyes widened. “No!” She calmed down. “I at least understand the challenge. I just wish… the future didn’t need me dead.”

  “As do I.”

  He let the time pass in silence before asking the delicate question. “There is… no need for us to stay here, in this time. There are other things I must do before I return to my time, things that I know happened in my past that need a bit of help. So, I will ask you: do you want to stay? Do you want to see… what I’ve told you will happen?”

  He knew it was an odd request. He couldn’t imagine the emotional toll that might come from watching yourself brutally murdered. But she might need to watch to prove to herself that he was telling her the truth.

  She didn’t answer immediately, but he could follow along as her thoughts unfolded just as he’d expected. She didn’t want to watch her copy die, but part of her still doubted his stories. And… staying meant she’d get to watch Elizabeth for a bit longer. “I think… I think I want to stay. I think I need to stay.”

  “Then we’ll stay.”

  “What happens… when we leave?”

  “As I said, I have a few other things I need to do in my past, but once I am done we will return to my time.”

  “And I’ll see my daughter?”

  Eventually. “That’s the idea.”

  “Do all people in your time have flying carriages with no horses?”

  He laughed. “Almost everyone has a carriage without a horse, but most of the carriages don’t fly. Most people in my day have never seen a horse or ridden one.”

  Her face suggested that she thought he was lying about that.

  The day progressed as most days in the village did, with each villager working their craft. Maynard the hunter arrived back inside the gate with a fresh kill. A half dozen others arrived with harvested grains, foraged berries and roots, and wood for the fires. Dozens of small transactions took place; the village’s internal economy operated like a much larger city in modern times, leaving everyone from the firewood collector to the most skilled artisan the chance to earn their daily bread… and much more.

  As the sun began to set, most of the villagers moved toward the central section of the village, where they collected bread, meat, and vegetables for consumption. Genevieve and Elizabeth were not among them; instead, the mother and daughter moved back to their cottage.

  Adam felt his pulse quicken.

  Genevieve’s end was at hand.

  ~~~33~~~

  1015 A.D.

  Adam moved the invisible cocoon closer to the cottage shared by mother and daughter. He could feel the mounting distress from Genevieve; she, too, sensed that the end must be near for her copy. Her thoughts revealed her fear that when her copy died, she might feel the pain, or might die, too.

  He sent nanos into the cottage to serve as remote microphones. He could hear the conversation in his mind, but that did little for Genevieve. He set up a mental link between them, letting the voices from his remote nanos transmit directly into her mind.

  Her expression turned from worry to surprise as she, too, could hear Elizabeth and Genevieve talking. He could only wonder how odd that must be, hearing a copy of yourself talk to your only child.

  “—baby goat is growing well.” Elizabeth’s voice began the conversation. Her tone took on a note of sadness. “That should help
, since the last kid didn’t make it.”

  “You’re doing excellent work there, Lizzie.” Genevieve’s love and admiration came through, and he could sense the real Genevieve mouthing the response even before he projected the words. An odd side effect of watching a real-time conversation with the original where the clone did the speaking.

  Elizabeth’s tone turned more conspiratorial, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “We’re almost out of the powder, Momma.”

  “You’re certain there’s nothing else in the Schola that will help?” He could sense the disappointment from both clone and original.

  “There are no plants that look anything like it. The stranger didn’t let me see what the original plant looked like, so I can’t even look to see if there are any around here. He just told me the name of it. Zirple. What a funny name!”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Genevieve sighed. “I’ve made such good progress lately, especially in my ability to sense emotion and intention in others.”

  Adam glanced at the real Genevieve. “That’s why you’re not concerned about me anymore, isn’t it? You trust your senses and your ability to read my intention, and you know I’m no threat.”

  She smiled in a conspiratorial manner. “You’re still hiding something, though. Aren’t you?”

  “We’re all hiding something,” he murmured. That seemed to quiet her.

  “…progressing as well. I think I can… I think I can actually tell people how to feel.” He could almost feel Elizabeth shiver. “That’s scary, Momma. I don’t think I want to do that.”

  Clone Genevieve hesitated. “But wouldn’t that help with—?”

  “No, Momma, you know how I feel about that.” Her voice choked up. “I want Father to be a better man, but not… not like that.”

  Adam saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. He waved, catching Genevieve’s attention, and pointed. She followed in the direction he was pointing and watched as Arthur approached the cottage, stealthy, eyes calculating and devious. Both watched him as they listened in to the ongoing conversation.