‘Ah!’ Taren raised a finger to pose her concern. ‘What happens if we die whilst upon this little jaunt into the past?’
‘A very good question,’ Zeven agreed, as all eyes turned back to Telmo.
‘A slow death is no problem; just think back to the morning before you crossed into this universe and you shall awaken there,’ said Telmo.
‘And a fast death?’ Zeven cringed as he asked.
‘Well, like anywhere, that’s game over really.’ Telmo’s eyes shifted to Jahan. ‘Even if you were immortal before, you need time and the energy to teleport your soul-mind elsewhere, before it is absorbed in the great Cosmic scheme and reincarnates.’
That news sobered everyone considerably.
‘On the up side,’ Telmo regained his cheery demeanour, ‘it only takes one of us to complete the mission and change the future, then we shall all awaken in our rightful place, with this disaster as nothing but a long forgotten dream.’
‘I like those odds.’ Zeven looked at his company. ‘If I had to put my fate in the hands of anyone, it would be you guys and gals.’
‘Hear, hear,’ they all agreed.
‘So where do we begin?’ Taren looked to Telmo.
‘With a little past-life regression,’ he said. ‘We’ll utilise the meditation chambers here. From the control room I can verbally guide you through the regression technique and anyone who emerges from their regression knowing the name of their incarnation, gets to come.’
‘That sounds fair enough. Although past-life regression was never one of my strong points at university,’ Jahan noted with some trepidation.
‘Well, I’ve never done it before, period.’ Jazmay clapped her hands together. ‘But, bring it on.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Telmo said. ‘Still, I do advise that you not heed any of the visions of the past that you perceive, as circumstances will alter once our current consciousness and our past consciousness merge.’
‘Whoa!’ Zeven exclaimed, ‘I can’t even imagine how that’s going to be for the poor unsuspecting bastard I’m about to drop in on. I sure hope he has a sense of adventure.’
‘As I was explaining earlier to Taren, the chances are the merger will not be a sudden occurrence. Much as you remember your past lives as one of the Chosen, your awareness of your other lives will come in spits and spats. That’s why I will implant a trigger word, which Rhun shall know, in the unlikely chance that I should fail to remember, which I won’t.’
‘I could probably also help awaken Ringbalin from here, if need be,’ Noah advised.
‘That’s what I like, a backup plan, for the backup plan.’ Zeven was appearing more confident about their endeavour.
‘There’s still one thing concerning me,’ said Lucian, closing his eyes a moment. With a shake of his head, he opened them again. ‘I keep trying to teleport, but it’s not working.’
‘One problem at a time, captain,’ Telmo said.
‘Can you?’ Lucian challenged the young man he was placing so much faith in. ‘It isn’t one of Telmo’s talents but it was one of Taliesin’s?’
‘This is what I keep trying to tell you. We are the same being.’ Telmo served the captain a disgruntled look. ‘So, of course I can teleport.’
Everyone waited with arms folded for the whiz kid to prove the claim, and Telmo was insulted.
‘Your confidence in me, as always, is overwhelming.’ He vanished from the conference room.
‘Shit!’ Zeven blurted out, as surprised as everyone else present.
‘He did it!’ Taren was both delighted and chastened at once — Lucian was grimacing also.
‘Of course I did it.’ Telmo stormed back into the room via the door. ‘Why would I run around making claims I can’t live up to? I know how explosive this entire situation is!’
‘A thousand apologies, Telmo,’ the captain said. ‘I promise I won’t doubt your word again. If you say “I can do this”, then I will believe you.’
‘Hey, it isn’t that hard.’ Ringbalin walked in through the conference room door, appearing pleased with himself, whereupon everybody shot a glance back to where he’d been sitting only moments before, to find his chair unoccupied. ‘Since I had that soul meld with En Noah, and I inherited a lot of his memory, I suspected that might include his memory of how to teleport.’
‘Damn it!’ Lucian couldn’t help but be frustrated. ‘Am I the only one who has a problem with this?’
‘Yep, the only one,’ Zeven noted, and Taren glared at him.
‘I think that was a rhetorical question,’ she told her cousin, noting how he was quietly gloating.
‘It won’t be a problem, I promise you, captain,’ Telmo assured him. ‘As Ringbalin has just demonstrated, all we have to do is jog your memory.’
‘More past-life regression,’ Lucian guessed, and Telmo nodded. ‘All we mortals should get some rest, and in six hours we’ll begin.’
‘Well, before any of you go anywhere,’ Rhun piped up, ‘will somebody please shoot me?’ The governor’s sights settled on Jazmay, who still had her weapon on her person. He opened his arms wide and smiled sweetly to invite her to fire. ‘Make the last twenty years go away, please.’
Jazmay looked to the captain to get his permission to fire upon the local and Lucian gave the nod. ‘You might want to sit down for this,’ she suggested, taking aim.
The door sensor chimed as Taren made herself a bed on the padded floor of the meditation chamber, alerting her that she had a visitor. It was no surprise to find her husband awaiting her attention in the corridor.
‘Telmo said we were supposed to sleep,’ Taren said in a coy yet alluring fashion. ‘And you know we won’t if I let you in here.’
‘What if this was our last night together? Tomorrow we may be leading completely different lives.’ The idea clearly disturbed Lucian, and Taren too, now the full ramifications of what they were attempting had been brought to her attention. Up until now, Taren had been focused on whether they could do this, not whether she truly wanted to. ‘If I can’t make the time jump with the rest of you, I’ll be left be —’
Taren silenced his fears with a kiss, impassioned by the realisation that their close association might once again be coming to an end. ‘If you can make the jump or you can’t, your soul-mind is there, Rhun said so. But whether we have any sort of relationship in the ancient future we are shifting to, remains to be seen.’ The thought inspired Taren to kiss him again. ‘What if we are enemies?’ That thought killed the passion momentarily.
‘That’s never been the way of it before,’ Lucian reasoned. ‘And right now, we have no such impediment, so …’
She could not resist that half grin of his and so allowed Lucian to lead her into the chamber. She slapped her hand on the control plate and the door locked behind them.
The lighting in the pit area was dim — Rhun sat alone, listening to the communications between his allied planets, when Zeven found him. ‘Any news on the Orions?’
‘Nothing yet.’ Rhun sat back and looked to Zeven.
It felt weird to Zeven, seeing his father appear his own age. ‘You don’t look so much like my dad any more,’ he noted.
‘Well, you look like my father’s champion knight back in ancient Gwynedd,’ Rhun replied. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?’
‘I miss my missus, I can’t sleep.’ Zeven plonked himself down in a chair.
‘Me too,’ Rhun conceded.
‘Me three.’ Ringbalin emerged out of the shadows. ‘I’ve never been homesick before … I never had a home to get sick for.’
‘Ditto.’ Zeven sympathised completely.
‘So, are we really sure we want to do this?’ Ringbalin appealed. ‘We may never see our old lives again!’
‘It only takes one of us to succeed,’ Zeven said, reminding him that the odds did appear to be stacked in their favour.
‘I’ve been homesick for twenty years,’ Rhun out-boasted them. ‘I hoped I’d done something in the past that might have chang
ed the future for the better. Instead, I figure out that I actually caused the disaster in the first place.’ Rhun stopped himself from saying more about past events. ‘But,’ he said with more conviction, ‘I know my way around ancient China now, and I have my immortality back. If I am ever to return here and find my wife alive and well, I have to do this … alone, if need be.’
Zeven wasn’t about to let that happen. ‘From my own past experience, I know that if I teleported myself back to the morning before we left and passed up this ancient sabbatical, I would regret it for the rest of my days.’
‘Wow,’ Ringbalin realised. ‘I have that ability now, don’t I? To simply teleport myself back to AMIE yesterday?’
‘Until tomorrow,’ Rhun pointed out, ‘when you teleport your soul-mind into the body of someone who, in all likelihood, does not have that Power. Still, if in the past you remember that you’re you, you’ll also remember that you have mastered the art of teleportation. That’s where I come in.’ Rhun grinned at Ringbalin’s alarm. ‘Don’t worry so much.’ He waved off his concern. ‘We’ve done this stacks of times, and we always make it come out right in the end.’
‘Really.’ Ringbalin found a seat, before he fell down. ‘During my near-death experience earlier today, I was made privy to many of En Noah’s past adventures and those incarnations he has come to remember. I don’t think we’ve ever attempted anything quite like this before.’
‘We’ve been building up to it.’ Rhun forced a grin. ‘You know, Noah could probably take your place, if you really don’t want to go?’
‘Why don’t you wait and see how you feel after Telmo’s regression session?’ Zeven suggested.
‘But what could be so appealing that I would wish to delay my return to Module C and Ayliscia?’ Ringbalin was clearly eager to get back there. ‘I wasn’t even supposed to be on this mission!’
‘Module C?’ Rhun queried.
‘It’s his greenhouse, in space,’ Zeven explained. ‘Ringbalin is a botanist.’
‘You’re kidding?’ Rhun found this highly amusing. ‘That makes sense, it really does.’ He laughed out loud.
‘How do you mean?’ Ringbalin queried, as clearly the governor knew more than he was telling.
‘Your name in ancient China meant “fragrant magic”,’ Rhun enlightened him. ‘And the place where you reside is famed as, among other things, the mountain of a hundred drugs.’
‘Drugs would seem to imply exotic plant species.’ Ringbalin was more inspired.
‘A natural drug store that is second to none to be found anywhere in this universe,’ Rhun teased. ‘If you love plants, you’re headed for paradise.’
‘Drugs and beautiful women,’ Zeven commented on what they’d learnt of Ringbalin’s past life already. ‘You sound like you have it made back there.’ Ringbalin raised both eyebrows; that remained to be seen.
Zeven looked back to Rhun. ‘Please tell me I’m not a farmer.’
Rhun had a good chuckle at that mental image. ‘I don’t believe you’ve been a farmer in any lifetime I’ve known you in! And in ancient China, where warlords and warriors abound, the universe would never waste a mercenary soul such as yours on farming.’
Zeven was satisfied with that. ‘What about —’
‘Ah.’ Rhun put a stop to the questions. ‘I’ve already said more than I should have. If you want to know more, then go rest and be fresh for tomorrow. Taliesin — or whatever his name is now?’
‘Telmo,’ Zeven and Balin both filled in the blank.
‘Telmo has never failed my kindred before,’ Rhun assured them. ‘Even when we were sure he was against us, he was always working on behalf of our greater wellbeing and interests. I realise it is a little alarming when you first step out of your own time and space into another that is entirely different, but really it is no more than taking a holiday on another planet. Only in this case, it is your soul taking the journey rather than your body, and instead of being a foreigner in a foreign land, you’ll be one of the locals and feel perfectly at home.’
‘I’ve never missed the life I left behind before I started time hopping with Taren, and I don’t expect I ever will,’ Zeven acknowledged, with a smile that soon disintegrated. ‘But I would miss the life I just left. I have a wife and daughter back there.’
‘I’ll ensure that you remember them,’ Rhun promised sincerely. ‘I know I said I could do this alone, but it sure would be a whole lot easier if you all understood my plight when I arrived. Telmo’s trigger word is going to save me a whole world of trouble.’
‘You hope. It seems to me that just when you think you have the jump on time, time has a way of balancing things out, to make it equally as difficult to make the situation come out as you desire,’ Zeven concluded, still apprehensive. ‘Still, I guess we’ll just wait and see what tomorrow brings.’
The regression session began as soon as all the participants were isolated in their own chamber. Khalid, who had been imprisoned in one of the meditation rooms, was let out for some fresh air and exercise with En Noah and Rhun.
In the middle of her chamber, Taren, who was comfortably seated crossed-legged, noted the lighting dim — this was the cue that they were ready to begin.
Telmo’s voice was very soothing, and via the speaker system in each chamber, he led Taren, Lucian, Jazmay, Zeven, Ringbalin and Jahan through some relaxation exercises. He then asked them to imagine themselves standing on one side of a bridge that spanned a vast misty river, where the bank opposite was obscured from sight.
‘On the far side of the bridge before you, you will find yourself in the last year of the reign of the Shang emperor, Zi Shou.’
As Telmo said the emperor’s name, Taren felt a distant recognition begin to stir within her and the accompanying feeling was one of great resentment.
‘When your consciousness crosses over into the past, you will come to a happy moment, when you were called upon by name, or required to introduce yourself. Once you know your name, return across the bridge and do not tarry. Should you become enchanted by events and forget your purpose, when you hear the word “Timekeeper” you will remember this instance, and all you now know and hold dear will come flooding back to you.’
In her mind’s eye Taren envisaged herself on the misty stone bridge, placing one foot in front of the other. Upon coming to the far side, she could still see nothing of her destination and so took a leap of faith into the fog.
Through the clouds rising off the steamy water, the torches of summons burned brightly on the jetty ahead — igniting the torches was the means to request an audience with the Wu of Li Shan. A team of hooded ferrywomen at her back were drawing the ferryboat across the surface of the large hot thermal lake; this vessel was the only way to gain access to the temple of the Great Mother. A large hood shrouded Taren’s face as she stood on the bow of the ferry. The sky above was dark and flashed electric with the promise of a storm. As their vessel neared the jetty, the noise in the rumbling sky was matched by the din before them. The rattle of battle armour, warrior chatter and horses served to warn her that a small army lay in wait. She motioned for the ferry to halt a good distance across the water from the end of the pier.
‘Speak,’ she requested and the commotion hushed to silence. ‘The Wu of Mount Li are listening.’
‘I am Ji Dan, come to seek the guidance of the great mother, on behalf of my brother, Ji Fa, Viscount of the West.’
Both names were legendary in these parts; the Ji family princes were increasingly idolised by the common people. The mightiest warlords in the land had come to them, just as the great mother had predicted they would.
‘We were deeply saddened to hear of the death of your great father, Ji Chang. He has brought a lasting peace and calm to the west.’ She gave her condolences.
‘His sons hope to continue his legacy, and are here to seek Heaven’s mandate to depose the emperor, who no longer serves Heaven, our great ancestors or the people! We understand a prophecy of the downfall of Zi S
hou hailed from Mount Li,’ he continued, ‘and I am here to discover if my great and noble brother, Ji Fa, is the one whom the Great Mother foresees will put an end to the madness of Shang oppression.’
‘You want the permission of the Great Mother to go to war?’ she clarified.
‘We are already at war,’ the lord replied. ‘But yes, if that is the will of Heaven.’
‘The will of Heaven is that we live in peace.’
The duke was amused by the response. ‘That is our greatest wish also. But my brother respectfully asks the Great Mother to consider that as it is one of the Wu who inspired much of Zi Shou’s madness, will you not aid us to defeat her?’
‘Su Daji is not of the House of Yi Wu Li Shan.’ The duke’s use of guilt tactics did not impress her at all. ‘We cannot be held responsible for her corrupt ideology and destructive practices. She has permanently damaged the reputation of all the Wu in the eyes of the people.’
‘That is because the Wu have done nothing to depose her,’ Ji Dan replied. ‘If our armies are to have any chance of overthrowing Zi Shou, we must first deal with Daji. The Wu have Powers beyond that of mortal man, and the Wu of the House of Yi Wu Li Shan are the most famed and respected in the West, so where else could the Ji family expect to find her equal?’
The notion of combating Daji, who had shamed all the Wu so greatly, appealed to her very much. ‘The Great Mother will only speak with the candidate for her heavenly mandate about such matters.’
‘I can only bring forth the candidate once I know his safety in your house is assured,’ the lord cautioned. ‘At the very least, I would have to accompany Ji Fa as far as your cloister.’
‘You have my word that you and your brother will have a safe return passage to Yi Wu Li Shan and back,’ she vowed.
‘And who are you, lady?’ the lord asked. ‘May I have a name to report to my brother as our contact among the Wu?’
‘I am Jiang Hudan,’ she announced, and her name incited gasps and muttering among the soldiers.
I can return to the bridge. Taren noted that her mission objective had been achieved.