by Aaron D. Key
I had just realised who it was I was really talking to and I was unsure how I should address someone I had always admired but only as a mythical hero. My prediction about talking rubbish had come true.
Rael looked at me with repulsion and stuttered shakily, “D-don’t call me ‘sir’. You’re not a soldier. Call me Rael, if you must, but not that.”
I thought this a strange request, like so many things in the encounter, but I nodded.
“You look like me,” Rael said, as if trying to keep the conversation at a level he could understand.
“I’ve been told that,” I replied. “Although I see now that there are more differences than similarities. I was told by someone I thought would’ve known that we were almost identical, but it’s not true.”
Rael’s face was the face of a man who had always been without the power. It reinforced what I had been told and yet had scarcely believed: that before he came to Herron, Rael had been a normal man.
“So you don’t know why you are here?” I asked quietly.
Rael shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know where here is.”
“You’re not on the planet you live on,” I answered briefly.
Rael shivered but showed no other sign of shock. “I was dreaming that I was in another place. A dark and evil place. And when I said the name ‘Aeth’, I was tortured. The dream went on and on and I couldn’t wake myself. Then the pain grew beyond bearing and I lost consciousness in the dream. When at last I was jolted out of sleep, I found myself here.”
“I brought you here,” I said, “without knowing who you were. I found you being tortured and I wanted to help. I didn’t know then that you belonged here or that the universe wanted you here. Perhaps you arranged for yourself to be here to give me a message that you thought was important,” I mused.
Or an unknown schemer has sent you here to coerce me into something, I thought. The only Rael that could be manipulated in such a way would be a powerless Rael. It was still an impressive feat, though, to reach into Rael’s past and to bring him to my notice.
“I arranged nothing. I don’t even know where I am, and I don’t know you.” Rael looked at me as if he did not like what he saw and then dropped his eyes to the floor. “This is a better place, though, than the last one.”
He stood up, still clutching the quilt to him and spoke as if trying to regain control over the world. “I’m a soldier, at least I was before this strange night, and there was a war. Once I believed that mine was an honourable profession, but I was beginning to lose this conviction. In the old days, before the war, I used to have commanding officers I respected: experienced men who knew what they were doing and who wouldn’t have asked a man to do something against his humanity or nature. Gradually they were being replaced by bigoted idiots with no experience, no honour: men like dogs who would obey their masters without thought or principle and who expected those beneath them to do the same.
“I was finding it increasingly hard to exercise that unquestioning obedience that had been trained into me. I wasn’t having a good day even before this delusion started. I decided to get drunk and probably said a lot of things I shouldn’t have said. I was declared unfit, informally, and so I’m going to be punished – quite a nice punishment as it happens, like a holiday. They’re going to send me to an island where fortunately I speak the local languages. There everyone will hate me – but in a quiet, underhand, mumbling way rather than a direct and focused trying-to-kill-me way. I’m looking forward to it. There, if I can’t find a way to escape this horror of a life that does not involve disgrace or dishonour then, I’ll have to remain unfit until the day they shoot me.”
He sat back into the chair, unhappily hunched again, and began to toy with the food I’d acquired for him. The quilt fell to his naked feet and I noticed with a trace of jealousy that he was in much better condition than me, despite the state I had found him in.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Rael.” I sighed. “I’m afraid that anything I say may change the course of your life and thus my world. I’m sorry that the place you come from is so screwed up.”
“Well so am I, but I think sometimes it’s not the world that’s screwed up – just me.” He paused. “I suppose there’s no chance of getting a drink?”
I produced the water bottle.
“No, I mean a real drink.”
I guessed it was three in the morning. Was he joking?
“Do you mean alcohol?” I joined in with the joke. “I’m afraid you banned it.”
“I must have been mad,” he said with a frown of confusion. “Was it in this world I was being tortured? There was plenty to drink there. How did I get here?”
I thought about his question carefully. I was beginning to suspect the true significance of all of this. It made a bit more sense if I assumed the plotter behind Rael’s presence belonged to my world.
“This world is a bigger place than is in my comprehension. There is the other side of the mountains and the other side of the desert. No one knows what happens over there. The journey is enough to discourage exploration, although we know most of the world around Herron. We’d believed that it was impossible to travel over the desert with the power, but I did it last night.”
“You said your name was Damon Ich?” Rael asked sharply now.
I nodded.
“I begin to remember my dream more clearly now. The torture didn’t begin straight away, although the memory of that almost erased the rest. I was in a dark chamber, and all around me were men sat on what looked like barrels and sacks. They all looked up when I appeared and there was surprise in their faces. One man, he was doubled over with age, stepped towards me. ‘We’re very sorry,’ he said, ‘to trouble you but our need is great. We have only one chance of defeating the madman who rules our nation. We need to let your descendant who now lives in Herron know of our plight.’
“I said to them, ‘I don’t have any descendants …’
“‘Give a message to Damon Ich,’ they said, but as they spoke I faded from there and arrived in the place where the torture began. One of the men I noticed in that chamber was with me to begin with. He said, ‘This is our fate when death is not merciful because we oppose a tyrant: the man who murdered Aeth.’ He offered me a drink and I saw in his eyes that he was far gone in it himself.”
“Aeth murdered and his murderer still living?” I said in a tone of disbelief.
“I’m glad that it means something to you,” Rael replied, “even if you express disbelief. I have a friend called Aeth. Is it the same man?”
“Aeth was once your friend,” I confirmed. “He left Herron and made his way across the desert with some of your people. If his murderer still lives then either he or his murderer has lived a long time.” I sat for a while in silent thought. Rael looked at me, expecting some response.
“I got the impression that they thought you could help them,” he prompted.
“I will help them but it requires thought,” I said. “I have your power, and with it I’m hard to overcome, but this has all the hallmarks of a trap. I suspect Aeth’s murderer – that this is his plot. He must also have power if he has bought you from your world and through time. What is his intention?”
“Could you bring a man through time and space?” Rael asked simply and I saw that he had no conception of what the power could do.
“Of course,” I admitted. “I can do many things, but the land shows us evidence of what could happen when two omnipotent forces fight. We live on a scarred planet and I’d be reluctant to cause any more scars. I believe once there was a sea here, and now there is no sign of one. If I go to fight a man who has survived generations and has destroyed Aeth, a man with power, it’s most likely that I won’t achieve anything except dying. Still, I’d be willing to try because I trust you, but I can’t help wondering whether this is exactly what he wants me to do.” I paused
and looked embarrassed. “Also it’s possible that you’re not Rael, and that this man has created an image of you to tempt me into danger.”
“It won’t help you, I suppose, to say that I feel very real, very weak, and very here?” Rael slurred.
“It looks like you’re staying for a while,” I said, relieved to be practical. As he ate some more with a thoughtful expression, I went to my wardrobe to find him something suitable to wear. As I put the clothes over the back of a chair, he looked at me with interest.
“Where did you say I was? Herron? This is where I will live, or I have lived, and it is not part of my world? It’s a lot to take in all at once. So is this it, for me?” Rael asked. “Am I finished with my life or will I have to go back?”
“You have to go back,” I said. “You don’t belong here at this point in time. Somehow you will travel from your world into our past.”
“Perhaps you will take me there?” he said.
“I may have to,” I said, troubled. “But there are things that need to be done on your world before the story starts here.”
“But I don’t suppose you feel able to tell me what they are?” he asked.
“No, I can’t,” I said regretfully, and conversation felt stifled after that. There were too many things I wanted to ask Rael, but this version of him knew nothing about my world. There were so many things I could tell him, but I had to hold my tongue.
When he finished eating, Rael stood up. He had a confused look upon his face. “I won’t have memories, you say, but I feel like I remember this room.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t explain it.
“I need to sleep some more.” Rael stumbled over to the bed, throwing himself on it, and I returned to the window seat, relieved that my duties as host had come to an end. I slept well at last, feeling the responsibilities of my role lessen because Rael was with me.
CHAPTER TWO
Saving Everything He Has Ever Known
The morning sun finally topped the horizon and shone into the windows with flat golden rays that cut straight across the room. Across the valley of Herron, towards the hills that separated the valley from the desert wall, the earth was a placid pink and the river rippled a deep azure. Rael was still asleep. I stared down into the courtyard. There were a few figures moving around but most people were asleep in their beds.
I was glad that Rael was still with me. I had always imagined Rael as a blessed creature, like the amber-eyed people who built Herron years ago – someone who had powers of which I could only dream. Even to see him in his current state could not dampen this awe.
In sleep, without troubled thoughts, it was true that his face looked like mine. I felt strangely aloof, like a spirit hovering over my own body. But I couldn’t waste the morning. I had to establish what was truth and what was lies, so I made my way outside.
Around me the stones of Herron glowed with the stored warmth of a whole season of sun. The ripples of the lucid lake water tempted me but I had no time for a swim this morning. I crossed the bridge over the swift-running river and climbed Rael’s Hill again. I stood under the blood berry trees and looked over the whole of the valley of Herron – from the mountains that ringed the lake to the range that dotted the horizon like scales on a lizard’s back. The inner walls of Herron were a mere scattering around the base of the tower. In there, I thought, lies Rael, although his bones lay under me. Then I touched my forehead to the greatest tree and felt its bark, sharp but yielding.
Around me the world dissolved. The crown of Rael still there in the sky above – the eight stars, the crescent moon – flickered and whirled inside my head. The stubborn morning sun, rising like gilding on the trees, filled every vein I had with molten fire. The tree that lay against my head was a constant. Around me different colours began to form and noises confused me. I wanted proof that the man I’d spoken to in my own room was Rael. I had decided to find it in the details of his past.
* * *
This wasn’t where I had expected to be. It was a summer’s day in a city. The strong sunshine fell upon the wet roads and paths until the city shone like the London of legend, paved in gold. I was standing in the shadow of a building that followed the line of a river completely trammelled by stone.
I was lost but suddenly I saw him, resting against the parapet of a bridge that led away from the city centre. The river below him was full of light and air, as if it still contained the white snow that had melted to give it its life. The air was pure and mountain fresh. Sunlight fell upon his skin and made him appear paler and even more ghost-like than he had seemed in Herron. He was smartly dressed, in a uniform just identifiable as the one he had worn last night, but clean and whole, neatly pressed and immaculately straight. Still, he looked like a man with troubles who sought for peace. Below him I could see a path running beside the river, bustling with casual strollers looking as if this was a pastime they indulged in every day. Rael watched them as if he had nothing better to do.
Abruptly a change came over him. He had been leaning against the bridge, relaxed and unfocused, until he straightened up, pulled his jacket down, and tried to hide the colour flaring in his cheeks. I couldn’t see what it was that had produced this effect. I made sure that no one could see me, including Rael, and moved to stand beside him.
He was looking at a woman in a white dress walking beside the river. She was tall and graceful, with long blond hair tied around her head as if a headdress, like a dreamer walking behind a mask, blind to the oncoming people blocking the path before her. Her eyes did not waver from a fixed point immediately in front of her, and this with the image of her graceful, rhythmical walk gave the impression of a tightrope walker. I watched Rael’s face. He was smiling, hypnotised by the woman, and so quite unprepared when she paused for a second and looked up. She saw that he was looking down upon her with more than a casual interest, but she did not smile. Turning her eyes away, gradually her face grew pink too.
Rael looked embarrassed to have been caught staring and petulantly turned his back and began to study the city’s skyline. As he saw the familiar figure pass out from the other side of the bridge, though, he let his eyes linger upon her waist, her shoulders, her neck.
She was walking now with another woman. As she drifted away, Rael stared in panic, unable to decide what to do. He rushed from the bridge and followed along the higher terrace beside the road, keeping her always in view. I shuffled beside him, feeling intrusive.
Ahead there was another set of steps leading to the river path, which Rael paused at then began to descend. Footsteps sounding on the stairway caused him to brake. Swerving his eyes towards the road, he tried to look as if he were interested in the buildings on the other side. He didn’t look up and the woman avoided looking at him, though it was obvious from the shallowness of her breathing that she was aware of him.
The two women crossed the road and turned into a lane between two high buildings. Rael stood still, undecided, and I waited by his side. He followed across the road once they were out of sight. A glimpse of white, the colour of her dress, reassured him that he had not lost the trail. We walked beside noble palaces, historic buildings of great beauty, fountains and archways, paths and gardens, all with total oblivion, total absorption, until rounding a corner suddenly, he stopped in surprise. The path ahead of him was empty – stretching out into the distance without twisting or turning, without ridges or dips. He moved forward uncertainly, looking around him. There was a stifled giggle from a window above him and a soft voice rebuking. As he looked up, a shutter was gently closing over the window of a balcony. Rael walked quietly on, defeated.
I had looked up a second before him and saw a strange thing. There was the woman’s face, half scared and half excited. Next to her, her companion also looked out, and although we had not noticed her before she was almost identical, like the same woman perhaps five years older.
After this, Rael wa
s no longer seeking peace. He was restless: wandering the streets, blind to their attractions. He ate in one of the street cafés and sat tensely watching the world go by. I followed him back to a drab lodging house in which he sat and lay on his bed in a listless way for hours. Then in the evening I followed him to a concert of classical and patriotic music. I was not sure what I was looking for, but I was sure that this was not it.
I had begun to wonder why I still waited, whether anything was going to happen, but that sixth sense – the will of the universe – was bidding me to wait despite the stridency of the music and the uncomfortable surroundings. At least I was able to sprawl in the aisle instead of sitting stiffly upright like Rael on an uncomfortable chair. It was dark when at last we escaped.
The woman’s companion was waiting on the pavement by the entrance to the concert hall, dressed exactly the same as her younger friend had been earlier. There was very little to distinguish between them but I still wondered whether Rael would notice her because of the way she had been totally eclipsed to him by the other girl on the riverside walk.
This time, Rael did notice her. After a moment of hesitation, ended by her beguiling smile, he went over to speak to her. I stayed where I was – unwilling to listen in on a conversation so personal. This time there was no doubt of his reception. The woman’s expression was so full of love it was hard to remember that they had only just met. They walked hand in hand to restaurant seats overlooking the river and ordered drinks. There was an expression on Rael’s face that led me to believe he was secretly bewildered by his good luck, but there was no doubting the contented smile of the woman. She was with the person she loved most in all the world.
I was beginning to feel very unwanted, although nobody knew I was there, but there was one more thing I believed I was meant to see so I followed them as they left the restaurant. They traced their earlier steps along the river. This time they were in no hurry and I constantly had to find excuses to linger and things to look at in the other direction in order to give them the privacy they deserved. Eventually we returned to the street where the woman lived and this time Rael was invited in. I knew I did not need to go in, for which I was grateful. As the door shut behind them, an adjoining one opened. Hesitantly, the younger woman peered out, and with a wistful look back she disappeared into the dark night. Now I knew I had seen what I was meant to see, though it meant nothing to me, nothing at all. Both of the almost identical women looked like Rael’s wife in my picture. It seemed likely that both of them were also my ancestors or perhaps even the same one.