Chapter 47 Rhys
Rhys
Now in hindsight, Rhys understood every life lesson Godwin had tried to impart to him before he died.
How knowledge was true power and love was the answer to life’s greatest question.
Rhys had never been more full of love and conviction to save the world.
If Magellan was the captain of the ancient ship, he would stand beside her on the bow.
Godwin broke their silence to go over the plan once more.
“We will find an inn at Salzburg to stay for the night and then make the journey in the morning to Saint Gilgen to find Nannerl. After Magellan retrieves the song, we will travel northeast to Yspertal, the ancient Druid stone circle in Austria, which lies halfway between Salzburg and Vienna.” They needed a powerful place where Ley Lines were sure to cross to ensure she got back home, and they needed to avoid people given the danger.
Godwin thought an ancient Druid stone circle in the middle of nowhere seemed the best bet.
He went on. “Magellan will play her music on the journey to fend off whatever malevolent sounds she hears.”
In Frankfurt, Rhys had not heard the hellish noise Magellan had.
His hearing had vanished, eclipsed by the shadows.
When he had asked her to describe it, she had shaken her head and told him she did not want to think on it.
He could only imagine and stressed to his father, “Once we have Nannerl’s part of the song we cannot waste a single moment.
” He had already imparted to Godwin the dangers to come after the song was played.
“We will get in the carriage and ride without stopping while Magellan plays.” He squeezed her hand in reassurance.
Right now, he was trying hard not to think about what would happen when the time came to leave 1799. He hoped with all his heart he would be going with Magellan to her own time. He was relying on the blind faith of a dream.
Still, in quiet moments when his thoughts drifted, his heart would clench. Viraag was the Sanskrit word for the crushing anguish from being separated from the one you love. He couldn’t help but feel life was about to take her away, and he would lose his father again as well.
After Magellan retrieved the song from Mozart’s sister and they made it to the stone circle, Godwin planned to make his way to Vienna for New Year’s Eve. Even more stressful, Godwin was still resisting the trip to Vienna due to the war, preferring to return home to Hereford Manor.
Rhys would not allow it.
“But why must I go?” his father asked, sounding like a petulant child.
Rhys let out an impatient sigh. “Well, if you must know . . .”
“Not a word!” His father pointed at him.
Rhys was at the end of his patience. “You once told me before you”—he stopped himself from saying you died and swallowed the lump in his throat.
He began again. “You once told me that it was my duty to live my life and love with an open heart. To not die regretting that I didn’t.
To be everything I was born to be. Well, you are no different.
Trust me when I say the best years of your life begin in Vienna at the stroke of 1800. ”
Godwin stared at him a long moment. “You’re telling me I will find love in Vienna?
” He barked out a laugh and his eyes slid to Magellan, who was trying hard to keep a blank expression.
Then Godwin glanced back at Rhys. “And not with just any woman I take it, from the grave look on your face like you’ve swallowed a goose.
Is that where I meet your mother?” He threw back his head and laughed with glee.
“Of course, now it makes perfect sense. It would be most inconvenient for you if I decided to return to Hereford Manor. I certainly can’t miss that New Year’s ball, now can I? ”
Rhys simply gave him a nod. Magellan was looking from him to Godwin, her mouth pursed in amusement.
“What is she like?” Godwin smiled, his bad mood forgotten.
“I thought you didn’t want to know,” Rhys reminded him.
“What if I pick the wrong lady? You’ll never be born. Or you’ll be born a Siegfried or Albert and we’ll never be here in this carriage.” The threat, although made jokingly, lingered between them with an unsettling silence.
Rhys still held his tongue. Should he meddle with the past? Or technically the future of the past?
“A hint,” Godwin prodded. Now that he knew he was soon to meet his future wife, he wanted to know. “Only a letter. The first letter of her name is all I need.”
Rhys deliberated. There couldn’t be any harm in that.
“B.”
“B?” Godwin looked enchanted by the possibilities.
“Barbara. Beatrice. Battina. Briaca . . . So! I will have to go hunting through a ballroom in Vienna for the lovely and mysterious B.” Godwin stared at him with a devilish smile.
“Then I will ask the beautiful B to waltz. Does that sound about right?”
Rhys stared into his father’s eyes, a heavy poignancy sweeping over him. Suddenly his father’s lifelong endearments for his wife took on a whole new light. When Rhys was growing up, he often heard all the little nicknames Godwin had for Birgit.
My Beautiful B, My Beloved B, My only B.
It had been for the letter. His father’s sole clue Rhys had given him.
Rhys could feel tears prickling behind his eyes. “Indeed.”
“Excellent. Say no more. We will not tempt the Fates with any further discussion on the future with my beautiful bride to B,” Godwin said, giving a last and final play on the letter.
Rhys met Magellan’s eyes. Hers were soft in understanding, and she took his hand in hers again.
He saw his father studying their joined hands, his eyes on the Liron signet ring marking him as the earl in his own time.
His father held his gaze, the light of laughter in his eyes dimming, and then he turned to look out the window.
Rhys desperately wanted to tell him about the accident, to plead with him to be careful in his laboratory, that his quest to discover elements was pure madness.
But his father had already made him swear not to meddle in his future or try to change what had been done, for they were meddling with time enough.
Sunlight glinted off the carriage’s glass window, and Rhys looked out at the lush countryside.
1799 marked the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, which would soon rage across Europe until the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Even as they made their way to Salzburg, Rhys knew the Coup of 18–19 Brumaire, which had happened in November, had placed Napoleon firmly in power.
The fighting would begin in earnest in April when France went on the offensive.
By then his father would be back in England with his mother at Hereford Manor, and he would be born in 1803.
Rhys had studied the war during his time at Eton, and Magellan had told them of future wars, even bigger than Napoleon’s, which was hard to fathom.
A war given the title “World War,” not once but twice.
Wars fought with advanced weaponry, all made possible, his father had pointed out, by the discovery of elements.
Magellan’s periodic table of elements she had described was indeed a puzzle humanity would use in the future for good and evil.
Which is why Rhys always thought it apropos live spelled backward was evil.
The shadows, the force from the lower dimensions that had found them when the labyrinth splintered, felt devoid of life and love, which is why it was so terrifying, because Rhys never wanted to be without either.
He thought back to Gwynedd’s diary about the Great Year and the Map of Time, how the world had a long day and a long night and right now the world was in darkness.
What would happen when those hungering for war and destruction were faced with the power a goddess’s song could harness?
Gwynedd had said every atom would sing and be lifted to a higher vibration where darkness could not exist. The song would not only save the planet but humanity.
Which must be why the guardian at Stonehenge had hidden the song in time with women.
Now they were on their way to find Mozart’s sister, a woman forgotten by the world while her brother rose to fame.
Rhys had been stunned to hear the tale. If not for Magellan, he never would have known about the sister’s life.
He could not look on music the same way again because of Magellan, just as he could not look at women the same.
Half of the world were women, and they had been forced into obscuring their light, which only helped keep the world in darkness.
Toska was the Russian word for great spiritual anguish, a sense of longing without knowing the cause. Was the world in anguish because life was out of balance?
When Magellan returned to the future with the song, she would have in her possession the incredible power to bring the world back into balance. To keep the poles from breaking. To keep an entire planet spinning.
Rhys took her hand and kissed it. She looked over at him with a soft smile. Godwin had his eyes closed and was dozing.
“We’ll need to find you an instrument to bring with us to Nannerl’s,” he said quietly. “Perhaps there will be a shop in Salzburg.”
She nodded and looked out the window, her eyes distant. “Yes, we should find something,” she murmured.
The views of the Eastern Alps were dazzling as they came into Salzburg, but Rhys’s eyes could not stray from her. Every minute together was becoming more and more precious. No single word in any language he could think of could describe the yearning in his heart to hold on to this moment forever.