A BOMB had just exploded inside Dak’s mind, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with it. He heard the greatest and the worst news ever in a single statement from Aristotle. His parents were evidently alive and well, in the same time period as him. And yet they were sent off to a war that would probably kill them.
“Wait . . . um . . . what?” he said, sure he sounded even more ridiculous than he felt.
The great philosopher looked at him with compassion and tenderness, and had him sit back down.
“Listen to me,” Aristotle said. “If this is true, then I give you my word that we’ll do everything in our power to save them. As surely as we’ll save Alexander and his father. Understand?”
Dak nodded. His chest hurt from the stress and worry. But he stayed quiet and waited for the full explanation. Aristotle continued.
“This is a magistrate’s report from the office of the hegemon.” He held up the scroll and shook it like a flag. “Two people of foreign descent were turned into authorities by a woman and her soldiers. The woman’s name is listed as Tilda, and the . . . slaves as the Smyths. Yes, slaves. Now, hear me out.”
Dak’s eyes had swollen to the size of grapefruits, but he stayed silent.
“Tilda accused them of being runaways and having poisoned their master, a thing I’m most certain that the woman did herself. That’s probably how she obtained these soldiers in the first place” — he gave a weary look to the unconscious man on the ground — “by killing their master and . . . freeing them to work for her. She’s a devious and clever woman.”
“But what does that have to do with the front line of some battle?” Sera asked. Dak was too choked up to ask it himself.
“The report has their plea and the resolution,” Aristotle answered. “At first they were imprisoned and sentenced to death by poison hemlock — the very fate that befell the great Socrates. In exchange for their lives, they were given duty on the front line of the upcoming war against Persia. Hardly a good trade, but better than outright death, I suppose. Hopefully we can get to them in time. I know King Philip will understand and pull them back. I give you my word, Dak. On Plato’s grave, my word.”
Dak looked up at the man, his long beard, his salt-and-pepper hair and eyebrows, his wrinkled skin, his wide shoulders, those eyes that said he knew everything worth knowing. Dak understood why Aristotle would go down in history as one of the great thinkers of all the humans who’d ever walked the earth. There was just something . . . majestic about him.
Dak realized something else then, too. It was one thing to be intelligent — to spout facts and figures and generally act like a know-it-all. It was another thing entirely to be wise. And Dak wanted to be more than just smart.
“Dak?” Sera asked. “Are you okay?”
He broke his gaze from the philosopher and turned it toward his best friend. Sera meant everything to him, as much as his parents. Seeing her, still by his side despite everything, and hearing Aristotle’s words of wisdom — it all did something to lift his heart. It was going to be okay. Everything. A-okay.
“I’m all right,” he finally said, his spirits lifting by the second. “We’re close, guys. We’re so dang close to wrapping this whole business up. Let’s get to King Philip’s camp, let’s tell him about that Pausanius dude, get my parents back, and warp ourselves back to the nice cozy future we’ve almost finished creating. Who’s in?”
The smile that broke across Sera’s face was more full of relief than anything else, but she put her hand out like a quarterback in a football huddle. Dak put his on top of hers.
Riq rolled his eyes and said, “No way. But I’m in.”
Dak gave Riq a dramatic glare. “Don’t leave us hanging, dude.”
With a sigh, Riq laid his hand on top of theirs, and the three friends gave a small cheer.
Aristotle seemed baffled by their hand gesture, but his expression showed a trace of excitement. “Let’s find some help for our poor soldier here.” The man’s breathing was shallow, but steady. “Then we rest, eat, and make preparations. When we’re ready, we’ll use your magical device to go exactly where we need to go.”
Two days later, Sera stood with her friends — and the philosopher, of course — on a rise that stood above a huge sweeping valley that seemed to stretch beyond the horizon. It was like a city with no permanent buildings: Tents filled it from one side to the other. Cookfires, temporary pens for animals, and storage sheds for food and weapons dotted the scene, and men and women streamed through the valley.
“I certainly never thought I’d come to this area,” Aristotle said, almost reverently. Sera thought she heard a hint of fear in there somewhere, too. “I’ve been receiving reports about the hegemon and his growing army for some time now. But to see it firsthand . . . it takes the breath away. I don’t like to think about what all those soldiers will do when they march across the continent.”
“We’re not here to judge,” Sera said. She’d struggled plenty with her conscience in the course of fixing the Breaks. She still wondered whether she could have done more for the people she’d met. But the consequences of meddling with history boggled her mind. In the end, all she could do was take the Hystorians at their word, set history on what they claimed was the proper path, and hope for the best.
“No judgment, here,” the philosopher replied after a few moments of considering her answer. “I’m just in awe of the power of an army, and I don’t like thinking about what happens during the horrors of war and conquest.”
“I used to,” Dak said quietly. Sera expected him to say more, but he didn’t.
Riq turned his back on the sight and faced his companions. “Let’s just get the job done. We’ve come this far and we’ve done what we were supposed to do. Let’s finish it. Nothing could be worse than the Cataclysm.”
Aristotle made a harrumphing sound.
“What’s our plan of action?” Sera asked her friends. “What do we do first?”
“Oh,” Aristotle replied, “I suspect that we don’t have to do much of anything.”
“What do you mean?” Sera replied.
The man gestured with a nod of the head toward the camp below them. “You’ll see soon enough. Our hegemon didn’t get to where he is today by letting strangers just appear at his camps without explaining themselves. Thoroughly. Watch and see.”