Intersections

The warrior looks down as I approach; my robes are swirling lightly in the wind and an errant zephyr lifts my hood from my head and exposes my scalp.  I look up at him, feeling as a child in the presence of his bulk, and he eases his faceplate up and over his head.  In contrast to my slight baldness, his head is large and covered with thick dark hair that flows away as he brings his helmet down by his side.

He says something, but the wind whips it away, and he sighs and kneels down.

“How can I serve the Arch-Chancellor today?”  His face looks even more massive close up.  I know this warrior, though his name escapes me at the moment, he is known not to smile because he is missing a tooth, and somewhat ashamed of it.

“You can take me to Her Majesty, please.”  I try to speak sternly, but somehow, as always, my voice projects itself in a breathy whisper, even as I am certain that I can heard a mile away if I want.

“She’s, ah, indisposed right now, Modem.”  I am somewhat taken aback at this.  The familiarity seems out of place, and no-one has called me by name for such a long time.  I look more closely at this knight.  Then I realize, it is Sir Laramor, of course he knows me.  I cost him the tooth, and I’m still vexed with him, but he is a friend, I’m told.

“I am displaced right now, Laramor, and I only have a certain amount of time here, so the matter is urgent.”  He pulls a face I cannot read, truth be told it’s a miracle I recognized him at all.

“I cannot accede to your request, by order of Her Majesty, even to the likes of you, Modem.”  He rises off his knee and leans over instead.  “Let’s go to the tavern, it’ll be like the old days.

“She is upset, I don’t know what she’ll do if she sees you.”

“I don’t remember the old days, I can barely remember yesterday.”  I look up at him with some asperity, “And you know I cannot drink.”  My robes irritate me, finally, and I stop them moving according to the will of the wind, and reshape them into a sort of kite, which raises me up to the height of his eyes.  “I need to see the queen right now, Laramor.”  For the first time, I look over into the Keep behind him and realise that there is a chaotic look about it.  People are moving quickly and repairing things, gathering up grain.  Laramor can see the wonder in my eyes.

“Yes.  It already happened.” He reaches out to pat me on the shoulder, somewhat awkwardly.  “She is upset, I don’t know what she’ll do if she sees you.”  He pauses, “You might as well come in though.  I imagine you’re hungry.”

He turns and walks over the drawbridge and hence under the portcullis, its sharpened stakes like a promise of doom.  I happen to know that the stakes can lower in an instant, released as a last defense to guillotine an oncoming invader.  I wonder how many times that has been me.

“Once.”  He says.  “It was ugly.”

The others around the keep are gradually stopping their tasks and looking at me.  I can see many cuts and abrasions, a few broken arms.  I reach out vaguely, but the people shy away immediately.  The knight looks down at me.

“They’re not ready for that.”

“I’ve done it before.”  He shakes his head.  “I remember, I have.  I helped.”

“Not here, not this time.”  I look up at him as we walk. “You really don’t know, do you?" He says

“Know what?” I'm preplexed.

“This is only the second time they’ve seen you.”  He gestures around him.  “The first time, well, it was all this.”  I look about at the destruction.  Part of the keep wall has fallen in, it has cost lives.

“Sorry.”  It seems inadequate.

“I know.  They’re not ready for it though.”  I stop and look up at him severely.

“You have to make them ready.  It’s not like I’m going to show any mercy.”

“We know that.  Tell Mercia, she lost her husband today.”  He walks on.  The recollection rocks me and I take a moment to continue.  Mercia and her husband, Leonard, they were always kind to me, back then.  They have two small children and a little farm.  Just her now.  I can feel her eyes on me as we pass, but she does not meet mine, and she looks away when I glance over.

“Come on.”  The big knight says.  “The kitchen is still intact at least, come and get some food.”  We move into the main part of the keep and down some stairs.  The interior is still richly decorated, wood panelling and carpet.  They have not yet moved onto the war footing that will come in later years.

“So, I’ve been here before?”  We’re sitting at the table, and the head cook has given me a bowl of thick stew.  She smiles kindly and passes her hand over my head as she does so, but as usual it takes me a few moments to recall her.

“Twice actually.  It counts as twice right?”

“You tell me.”

“You’re a few hours late for this fight, but you came, like this,” he gestures at me, “once before.  It was the initial warning.”

“I take it I wasn’t very convincing.”  The big man shakes his head.

“You’ll excuse me for saying so, but you have the aspect of a child, and a slight child at that.  We didn’t take you seriously, you were reluctant to display your powers for one thing, and you were excitable.  Your demeanor is different now.”

“I have seen things now.  Things it’s hard to prevent.”

“And you have no control over it?”  I shake my head. She looks at me closely. I feel moved to say,

“Actually, I exert as much control as I can, it’s not much.”

“That’s not reassuring.”  I find myself in a hearty agreement with this sentiment, but my mouth is full of stew now and I take a moment while I’m eating a few spoonfuls to think about what I’m going to say next.

Laramor has trained all his life to stand against me.  The other me, actually, probably me as well.  His armor is nearly half an inch of steel under his tabard, I know the weight is incredible, and probably the armor is scorched and dented.  He sees me looking and pulls aside a section of the tabard.  The amour has a deep score in it down one side.

“And you here you are giving me stew in the castle kitchen.”

“It’s a keep, Modem, not a castle.”

“Why isn’t it in the castle.”

“Because we know you’ll keep making this mistake.”

“Oh.”  I take another large mouthful of the stew.  After I gulp it down I say, “I could come back earlier and stop me.”

“You said no to that last time.”

“Did I explain why?”

“It’s because you make this trip.  You said you wouldn’t be able to leave before you came back again.” He pauses and takes a long draught of ale that the cook has put in front of him.  I look about, the rest of the kitchen staff are going about their business, but one is writing industriously on a parchment.

“Notes?”

“Every time, you warned us, in detail, but we thought you were some sort of mad child, so…”  he leaves it dangling.

“And the queen is embarrassed because she didn’t listen to me.”

“I don’t think she could possibly take you saying ‘I told you so,’ not even once.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“No-one knows what you would and wouldn’t do Modem, not even you.”  I look away sheepishly.  The cook mistakes my look for thirst and brings over some milk from the ice block.

“Here you go, love.”  I smile up at her in thanks.

“According to you, you come up through the floor of this very room and kill everyone in it next time.”

“Well, that’s uh, bad.”

“You have a talent for understatement.

“Laramor, you know I don’t want any of this right?”

“We all know.  You screamed it out of the thing’s mouth while you were flaming the wall so hard it exploded.”  I place my hand over my mouth in shock.  “Your warning here, now, is too late for this.”  He looks sternly at me.  “The sooner you know your own rules the better off we’re all going to be.”

“Just chop my head off now?”

“That’s not going to happen, Modem.  Quite apart from any moral considerations, you’re chock full of whatever power you have.  We can’t take the chance, it would release completely when you die.”

“So, you’re not even trying to kill, um, it?”  He looks at me patiently.

“The best we can hope for is driving it off.”

“Well, I hope you do kill it.”  He shakes his head again.

“Same problem.  We have to persuade it.”

“I don’t know if I’m open to persuasion in that form.”

“Think about this then, don’t warn us.”

“I have to.”

Why, Modem, why?”  He looks exasperated.  “You come back here and each time tell us that the very act of coming here causes some future disaster, you even know the dates.”

“Third of Graunce, twelve seventy-six, three hours fifteen minutes after the meridian.”  I say promptly.

“That’s four years from now.  What causes it?”

“I don’t know!”

“Always too late, according to you.” Laramour is exasperated, “You have to get a grip on your powers!”

“I know that!  What do you think I’ve been trying to do!” I sound whiny, even to me.

“No-one knows because this looks like the start of it to us!”  He slams his gauntleted fist into the table.  “All that, out there, that was this morning!  You said some future visit caused it.  Don’t come!”

“I have to, you know it, I have to warn you.”

“Always too late, according to you.”

“Not this time, surely?”  There’s a cough from behind me.  The chap taking notes is looking at an hourglass.

“Five minutes, Sir.”  The big knight nods in acknowledgement and rises from the table.

“Come on.  You can’t be here, you make is very clear last time what happens if this form were to meet itself.”

I get up from the table.  It takes me a second to realise that I’m a little disoriented, and then I find my feet and follow the knight out into the courtyard again.  It’s barely been half an hour since I arrived, but I can see the difference already as the denizens of the castle, sorry, keep, tidy up and put away and rebuild.

He escorts me to the gate again.

“Well, I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

“So am I.”

“I’ll see you again.”

“Yes.”  There is little else to say.  I’m going to lose my memory again, and he’s going to see a different version of me.  And depending on what version it is, we’re going to fight.

I hold my hand up as a good bye as I fade out into time.

I think of her as a slight girl, but in truth we don’t even know that much.  She appears seemingly at random, trying to warn us, but each warning is another doom, and in less than a minute she is a going to appear again, the closest even that she has come to being on top of herself, and her first incarnation provided a very graphic picture of what would happen should she coincide with herself.

I can only wait patiently.

She appears, her robes all askew and winding about her, whipped up by the wind, and I know if a few moments she will tire of it, but in the meantime, I kneel down to hear her better.

“Run!”  She says.  “The Dragon is coming!”