Soft, golden pools of light lay
like blankets of snow on the cobbled streets, highlighting fuzzy details in the
surrounding brick buildings. Ominous shadows were cast over the world, wrapping
themselves around the illuminated shards of streets and buildings. The air was
crisp, like the perfect apple; like the softest winter breeze; like the sound
of a whip cracking. Pale moonlight filtered through wispy, darkened clouds to
conflict and convulse with the yellow light of the street lamps.
The only sounds that could be heard
were the resounding click click of
new leather boots, and the quiet rasp of a man breathing. A cough pierced the
night, quickly muffled by a shirt, and then the near-silence returned. Michael
passed under a street lamp, and his light brown hair and tan complexion were
briefly revealed. For a moment, as his eyes flicked up to take in his
surroundings, light glinted off bright green. His attention was quietly focused
on his own thoughts, his steps naturally avoiding the darkest parts of his
environment. He looked up, peering at a street sign far ahead to gauge his
location, reassuring himself that his navigational instincts were, as always,
unerringly correct.
But the peace was suddenly
shattered by the appearance of a tall, slender man clad in a black coat that
softly dusted the cobbled street. He did not step out of an alley—no alleyway
was to be seen—nor had he been walking towards the lone man. It was as if he
had appeared out of nowhere; out of thin air. Michael recoiled backwards,
barely recovering from his stumble. His eyes widened as he stared at the
mysterious interloper. His gaze was calculating. His grin was reassuring. The
way he held himself spoke of confidence and knowledge. Through the waves of
shock Michael’s thought was arrogant.
“Do not be alarmed.” His voice was
smooth and deep, a voice that demanded attention and expected obedience. Almost
immediately Michael felt his shock ebbing away, against his rationality. “In
five minutes you will enter the tavern known as ‘The Three Lucky Men.’ You will
see me seated at the table in the far corner, near the fireplace. You will approach
me and utter this name.” He whispered the name Alagor like it was made of silk, and it caressed Michael’s ears.
“You must utter my name, as at this point I have not yet decided to confront
you. I will explain further then.” Before Michael could utter a single word in
response, the stranger called Alagor vanished like a flake of snow hitting warm
water.
Michael fell heavily to the grey,
damp cobblestones, scarcely believing his memories. The stranger, Alagor, had simply melted into the
night. He had been there, then he was not. Michael closed his eyes, seeking
some iota of logic in this sudden maelstrom of confusion. I am Michael, I am Michael. Over and over he thought these words,
until his breathing returned to normal. There
is a logical explanation for all of this. I probably never saw it at all. I
fell asleep while walking. It’s stress-related. Food poisoning. Anything but
men appearing out of thin air. Slowly Michael collected himself, rising
onto his feet. Some tiny, irrational piece of him was proud that he only
required the assistance of the rough-grained brick walls to the right of him
once in order to stand. Michael committed to his original course of action: the
tavern, for a few drinks. Again the sound of his newly made boots echoed around
him, except this time his gaze was more furtive, and no shadow lay unobserved. Every
darkened alcove was carefully analyzed and filed away, before his wary eyes
flicked to the next nearest possible danger. Eventually he began to hear the
soft laughter and conversation of a great number of men, and saw the strong,
steady yellow light coming from foggy window panes and a slightly ajar door. A green
sign with the words The Three Lucky Men
came into view, swinging as if of its own accord.
Michael’s stride lengthened to a
pace slightly above normal, and he pushed the door a little harder than was
necessary. It collided with the wooden counter behind it with a clack clack clack, causing a few men to
look up at him. Michael refused to meet the gaze of those men, and marched to
where the tavern keeper was currently serving out drinks. Michael leaned
against the bar, waiting for the patron in front of him to finish his woeful
recital of his life, and slowly took the room in. Four long, worn pine tables
comprised the main floor of the tavern, with dozens of men—of varying degrees
of cleanliness and social standing—crowded at the chairs and benches, holding
mugs or eating from clay plates. Surrounding the long tables were a number of
smaller, more private tables, at which groups of solemn men or rowdy groups of
gamblers conversed and socialized. The room was illuminated by powerful oil lamps,
sharply lighting the faded, splintered plank walls and the brown-tinged straw
littering the equally wooden ground. Serving girls ran back and forth, serving
the numerous men and nimbly dodging the attention of their hands. The whole
atmosphere was accented by the ever-present background noise of loud,
boisterous men.
At the front of the room was a
brick-and-mortar fireplace, lighting almost everything around it in an orange,
flickering glow. Barely caught in the sphere of ambient light was one of the
smaller tables, at which sat a mysterious man clad in a black coat. Michael
gasped and suddenly found himself coughing. Several patrons around him stared
in open amusement, watching as he vaguely tried to recover from attempting to
breathe in his own saliva. After several long seconds, he straightened and attempted
to resume his study of the table. Eventually Michael’s insatiable curiosity
fought its way past his fear, however, and he found himself marching resolutely
to the table in the far corner, with the intention of confronting the
mysterious—and terrifying—stranger who called himself Alagor. He vaguely felt
the straw underneath his feet crunch, or rather squish wetly, as he swerved
between numerous tavern customers. Then he was standing at the edge of the
fireplace’s light, suddenly unable to speak.
“What do you want, stranger?” It
was not Michael speaking, but the man seated at the table. “I am not interested
in company tonight. Besides, you’re not exactly my type.” There was no
mistaking that voice, the liquid sound. Even the laugh seemed to have its own
life; the low, humor-filled notes danced around Michael. “So be gone with you,
and let me finish my drink.” Again, that tone that demanded instant obedience.
Michael found himself turning to leave, but caught himself. He would not be
turned away.
“W-what was the meaning of our
confrontation outside the tavern? It was bizarre and not at all conventional.”
Michael hated the way his voice cracked.
“Confrontation? There has been no
confrontation between the two of us. You are a stranger to me.” the man replied
smoothly.
Could
I have been wrong? Michael shook his head—there was no forgetting the man’s
distinctive voice, the black coat, the tall, muscular build. “I am not
mistaken, sir! You appeared as if out of thin air and spoke strange words that
confused me greatly.” Much better
Michael said inwardly.
The stranger was silent for a long
moment. “What is my name?” He asked so softly Michael had to strain to hear it.
He hesitated. “Alagor,” he finally
said, “Your name is Alagor.”
Alagor laughed once more, beckoning
with his hands. “Come, sit down, we have much to discuss. If you know my name
then I obviously had need to tell you.”
Michael reluctantly sat down. “Now
you remember me?”
Alagor leaned forward, and for the
first time Michael saw his features clearly. He had pale skin, stretched tight
across well-defined muscles and sharp angles. Dark blue eyes peered out of deep
indents set under thick, bushy eyebrows. His hair was nearly black, hanging in
long, curled rivulets that teased his neck. “No.” Alagor’s voice broke
Michael’s observation. “No, I don’t remember you, because there’s nothing to
remember. I have never met you.”
“Yes you have!” Michael protested,
vividly recalling their confrontation.
“No, that wasn’t me.” Alagor
countered easily, a pleasant smile breaking out. “That was a different me. A me
from a different future.”
“What on Earth are you talking
about?”
“I’m talking about time travel my
friend. Well, you call it time travel. I refer to it as jumping.” Alagor spoke
these words like he was discussing the weather, as if it was the most normal thing in the
world.
Michael was flabbergasted. “Time
travel? You’re being preposterous! There is no such thing.”
“Yes there is, because I have done
it.”
“You cannot alter time! It is an
abstract concept. It has no substance, no volition. It exists only in our
minds. It cannot be folded, nor shaped, nor traveled. All you can do is ponder,
and calculate, and wait.” Michael was rambling, and he knew it, and this man
was positively insane. Or playing a joke on him. He began to stand up to leave.
“That is where you are wrong.”
Alagor interrupted, an unspoken command telling Michael to sit back down.
“Ideas are infinitely more malleable than reality, depending solely on the
mind of the idealist.”
Michael found himself sitting
again. “An idea cannot affect reality. The thought of wind cannot make the
leaves fall from the trees.”
“All of reality began with an idea.
The reality we know is no more than our perceptions and observations, filtered
through our knowledge and past experiences, and projected as reality. The
reality we know started with just ideas.” Alagor’s smile was large, content.
“You can’t be serious! Talk of time
travel and some-such can get a man put away.” Michael exclaimed.
“Only because men refuse to accept
the possibility and therefore lock it away as impossible!”
“You’re insane.” Michael could
think of nothing else to say.
It seemed Alagor had plenty to say
on the matter, however. “Time is nothing more than possibilities. The future is
an infinite number of possibilities, each decision branching out into an
infinite number of decisions, which branches into an infinite number of more
decisions, and so on. The past is those infinite paths, proven false by the one
true path that we are on. The present is here, no here, no here, and so on.
Every man follows his own individual path, and his decisions branch out into an
infinite number of more paths, and everyone’s paths intersect, so that one path
can affect the nature of another. It is an impossibly large number of
possibilities, and that is precisely why we cannot accept the possibility of
these possibilities. The ramifications are too high.”
Michael opened his mouth to argue,
“You’re just being—“
“Silence! You are ignorant, my
friend, so let me educate you. Very few humans actually possess the ability to
‘time travel,’ although it’s not as uncommon as the rest of the world seems to
think. We do not travel so much as we jump between folds. We fold together our
individual paths in order to jump between different points in time. I can do
the same with space, and although the foundation is the same the rules and
execution are different, so we will not talk about jumping through space.”
“Is this some form of joke?”
“Your puny perceptions of the world
around you are a joke. You only see what you have already seen, so when a man
appears in front of you it’ll haunt you for hours, and consume your dreams. You
only know what you have already been taught, so when a science yet untaught
appears, you throw it off as fantasy. Do not presume to know everything, for
arrogance of that kind isn’t even matched by myself, and I’m the one who can
time jump.” Alagor’s smugness angered Michael.
“My knowledge is based off of fact!
It’s based off of what’s been proven! It’s—“ Michael was interrupted when
Alagor swiftly clasped onto Michael’s arm. Alagor’s brow furrowed in
concentration, and then the world shifted
around Michael. Suddenly, the softly lit cobbled street outside was below
him, and he could see himself walking slowly in the direction of the tavern.
Alagor appeared and Michael watched himself stumble and nearly fall like a
fool. The conversation did not last
even a full thirty seconds before Alagor was gone. Suddenly Michael was seated
at the tablet again.
“So that’s what happened.” Alagor
mused, sneering at Michael. “You certainly are clumsy.”
“How did you do that!” Michael
stuttered.
“I showed you the past. I used
physical contact to find your own paths, and then jumped both of us into your
path. I also had to jump through space, else we would’ve appeared here at the
time you were out there. Something that I’ve never done before, but it was
interesting to try it. I wasn’t as precise as I would’ve liked, however, or we
would’ve appeared on the ground.” Alagor was almost talking to himself,
reasoning through the impossible events that had just occurred.
“But…” Michael couldn’t continue.
Behind him, a fight broke out, two burly rivermen throwing a table out of the
way to get to each other. A serving girl shrieked and hurriedly dodged out of
the way, while two massive peacekeepers intervened and broke the fight apart.
Michael was barely aware of it all.
“Not so arrogant now, are you?”
Alagor chuckled in open amusement.
“So…you haven’t even met me yet?
What happened in the past hasn’t actually happened?” Michael finally found his
voice.
“Oh, it happened alright. In the
past, but not in this future.”
Michael didn’t think he could be
more confused. “What do you mean?”
“In a different future, I singled
you out, and jumped into the past to confront you. Then, for dramatic purposes,
I jumped through space to appear in front of you.”
“You couldn’t jump directly in
front of me?”
“I could if I knew exactly where I
was jumping, but I wasn’t attached to your paths, only mine, so I could only
jump along the events in my past, and jump where I’ve either been or where I
could see.”
Michael took a deep breath. “So you
still have to go back and meet me?”
“Not at all.”
“But why? You haven’t met me yet
even though you have and—“ Michael put his face in his hands, a headache
quickly forming. “I have no idea what we’re talking about.”
“Let me explain, then. I no longer
have to go back and talk to you, because it already happened. The future where
I decided to go back and talk to you no longer exists, because I altered it by
jumping back to talk to you. This is the new future, where it already happened.
The ‘me’ you talked to no longer exists.”
“Why did you talk to me in the
first place?”
“It’s simple, you can jump as
well.”
“How can you tell?”
“Absolutely no idea. I’m not
exactly an expert.” Alagor grinned.
Michael groaned and hit the worn,
wooden table. Almost immediately his hand recoiled and he was prying out a
splinter. The noise in the tavern swelled as a man won a hefty amount at a
table a dozen feet away.
“You could make it so that never
happened.” Alagor spoke softly, seriously.
Michael looked up. “You’re really
serious about this, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know how I can tell you
are able to jump, but there’s no other explanation for me jumping back to
confront you. It’s quite possible your abilities come out on their own and get
you in a lot of trouble, or worse.” Alagor tapped his chin thoughtfully, before
answering Michael’s question. “I’m very serious. It’ll be good for me to teach someone.
I’m still experimenting myself. For example, can I jump into the future? I
reckon I can, it’s just a matter of finding the exact path I wish to jump to.”
“Don’t you jump back to the future
when you jump to the past?”
“Not really, as I anchor myself
in the present. I don’t jump completely into the past.”
“Can I really learn?” Michael said
reluctantly, the rational part of his mind screaming about his stupidity.
Alagor shrugged. “If you want. You’ll
need to buy a pocket watch first.”
“Why in the world would I want to
do that?”
Alagor’s look was incredulous. “To
keep track of the time, of course!”
