The Obsidians

“I am a mathematician, Oliver,” Mistress Moretti said. “The best mind the universe has ever known. I have a mind that’s rivaled only by Einstein’s.” She drummed her fingers against the desktop and her eyes flashed with excitement. “You need my instruction. You need my knowledge. If I train you, together we will be able to complete the formula.”

“But I don’t have time,” Oliver said. “I’m not trying to find the Elixir to unlock time travel, I’m doing it because Professor Amethyst told me it is the only thing to save my friend from time travel sickness! My friend is close to death.” His voice cracked as an image of Esther appeared in his mind’s eye. Instinctively, his hand tightened around the amulet. “I don’t have time to train here.”

The headmistress paused. She tipped her head to the side and regarded Oliver for a moment. “I see.”

She seemed disappointed that Oliver hadn’t taken her up on her offer to be trained here. He had not meant to insult her. In any other time and place, he’d have snapped up the chance to train at the Rome Seer School, to learn all the mathematical genius Mistress Moretti possessed. But he just didn’t have the time.

Hazel was busy worrying her hands in her lap. She looked at Oliver with an anxious expression. “Isn’t this our only chance, though?” she asked. “The Elixir has never been created. The portal led us here because this was where we could find all the pieces of the puzzle needed to create it. Mistress Moretti’s mind is surely part of that puzzle.”

“I can see what you’re saying,” Oliver told her. “But surely Esther will die before I get the chance to learn all I need to.”

“There’s a ritual,” Mistress Moretti blurted, interrupting their conversation.

“A ritual?” Oliver asked. He didn’t like the sound of that. It sounded ominous to him. Dangerous even.

Mistress Moretti nodded slowly. “It’s… how should I say it… a complicated procedure. One I have not done before. But it may be your only hope.”

Oliver’s nerves grew even more. Her words provided him with no comfort at all.

“What will it involve?” he asked, hearing the tremble in his voice.

“It will transfer all my knowledge and abilities to you,” she explained. “It will teach you everything I know. You’ll have access to my memories, even the subconscious ones that I’ve long forgotten. Then, I believe, you’ll be able to use that knowledge to finish the formula for the Elixir. What do you say?”

The whole thing terrified Oliver. But Esther needed him. So did the school. In addition, Mistress Moretti had told him he’d be able to see her memories. She knew his parents. Perhaps her memories might also bring him closer to finding them?

“Will it hurt me?” Oliver asked.

Mistress Moretti’s lips twisted to the side in consternation. “I don’t think it will be a pleasant experience,” she told him. “I imagine that it will be quite a shock to the system.”

Oliver glanced at his friends.

Walter gave him a reassuring nod. So did Hazel, although the look in her eyes betrayed her fear. Finally, Oliver looked at David. He trusted David implicitly.

“I believe this is a good idea,” David said.

Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, Oliver turned back to Mistress Moretti. He nodded decisively.

“Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll do the ritual.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Chris didn’t know what was happening. One second he’d been in Mistress Obsidian’s office, listening to her warn him that failure in this next mission would result in him being sent to a horrible hell, and then the next second he was here… wherever here was.

All around Chris, all he could see was black. He felt very calm, a bit like he was sleeping.

Images started to flash in his mind. He saw water, murky and swirling. Then he smelled that awful stench of raw sewage.

Fear gripped Christopher as he suddenly realized where he was. The River Thames! No!

Had Mistress Obsidian sent him back to that awful place? Had this whole second mission just been some kind of elaborate ruse, a way to get his hopes up only to dash them again by sending him to his watery grave? Terror began to consume him.

Chris could feel the water against his skin and all the sticky residue from the toxins in the dirty river. The smell in his nostrils made his eyes water.

He was swirling around and around and around, as if in a whirlpool. Then suddenly he saw a flash of someone else. He was not alone.

“Oliver?” Chris cried in disbelief.

His puny little brother was here, too, swirling around in the churning waters. What was happening?

The waves crashed around them and forced them onto the banks. Christopher flopped into the mud, gasping for breath. Lights flashed like strobes around him.

Looking up, Chris saw where the lights were coming from. There were two portals standing on the riverbank in front of him, both rusted and decrepit looking, flashing their electric light displays.

As the lights flashed all around, making his vision flash in and out, Chris tried to get to his feet. He could see Oliver just a few feet to his side trying to scramble up, too.

He was heading for the portal, Christopher realized.

There was no time to waste. Still on his belly on the muddy bank, Chris threw an arm out toward Oliver, stretching as far as he could. He grabbed hold of his brother’s ankle.

But Oliver was like a worm, writhing in the mud. His ankle was slippery from water and the toxic muck of the river.

Despite Chris’s strength, Oliver managed to slither out of his grasp. In a second, he was through the portal. It zipped shut. The lights went out, plunging Chris into darkness.

Chris took in a huge gasp of breath. He flew into a sitting position and looked around, completely dazed.

Madeleine’s face materialized before him.

“Are you okay, Chris?” she asked.

Chris swallowed the hard lump in his throat and it dawned on him that he’d been dreaming. He’d been having a nightmare, his mind replaying the awful moment when he’d failed to kill Oliver on his last mission. He was more determined than ever not to let that happen again.

He looked around to see Natasha and Malcolm a few feet away, dusting themselves off from the bumpy ride.

“What happened?” Christopher asked Madeleine.

“We just went through the portal,” she explained. “You must’ve fallen asleep.”

Malcolm’s head started up and he scoffed, as if sleeping in a portal was a sign of bad manners or something.

“How could I fall asleep in a portal?” Chris gasped, smoothing down his messed up hair.

He’d traveled through portals before. They were not particularly pleasant experiences. Usually, they made him feel like his whole body was being pulled apart atom by atom. He must have been really exhausted to have slept during transportation through a portal! It was evidence of just how hard Colonel Cain had been drilling him.

The sensation of panic Chris’s nightmare had induced began to recede. He glanced about.

“Where are we then?” he asked Madeleine.

“Rome, I think. Sometime in the fifteen hundreds.”