Shackles are being removed from my wrists and ankles. The armed and armored guards are prepared for a fight, but I have none to oblige them with. I feel like I’ve been held underwater. I’m groggy. I’m tired. The chains hang loose from the shackles and sound harsh as they are dragged over the cold dark stone. I’m physically free, but I know I’m still imprisoned. The guards retreat from me, leaving me standing by myself but not alone.
There is a woman seated on a grandiose chair. She waits for me to speak, but I have no words to tell. I feel broken inside. She snorts angrily. I could feel her words waiting for the right prompt, but I don’t feel like performing on her stage.
She stands suddenly. My sight remains fixated on the floor. She walks over to a wall and watches my reflection in the mirror hanging there. Seconds decay on the silent floor.
“Come here, I want to show you something.” She waves her hand over the mirror. The reflection darkens then glows like an LCD screen would. I approach her as directed, but stop when I am able to see the mirror clearly. It shows a scene where an older version of me is helping some people prepare for a long passage.
I watched as the person resembling me uses my mannerisms and moves with my idiosyncrasies. “Is that me?”
She smiles smugly. “That’s you.”
I look back down to the floor. “Twenty years from now, I suppose.” In an alternate timeline. One where I actually accomplish something with my life.
“No. That’s you right now.” I could hear an angry tone to her voice.
I looked back up at the mirror and pointed. “See those grays? That’s me plus a decade at least. And I’m here with you.” I glance at her as if we were having a friendly conversation. Her layers of robes are cinched securely only at the waist. They are designed, so that even when standing still, her cleavage is at risk of spilling out and her crotch is always just a flutter of cloth from full view. All that cloth wrapped around her, and she uses it to be as naked as possible. Such a waste of cloth. I realize I’m staring and I look back down at the floor without showing my thoughts on my face.
“Yes.” My looking down has upset her. I don’t know what reaction she thought her physical presentation would elicit from me, but what I did was not what she expected. “Present you is here with me, right now. Future you is at the frontier town, with them, right now. And that you is only about six months ahead of you now.”
“Paradox. There can’t be two versions of me in the same timeline simultaneously. Besides, I’m on the trek they are about to undertake. And I had to fight and bleed just to get this far. They won’t make it, they haven’t a fighting bone in their body. They never had to claw to survive.” If that is my future self in the mirror, then I had to have gone back through time. Somehow. Without disturbing my current self. But the very act of jumping through time splits timelines. Right?
“Neither did you. And you made out this far.”
“I didn’t have babies, livestock, and the ill with me.” The future me was having an argument with someone that wanted to bring a wagon full of books. “And I’m not trying to preserve any culture either.” I look over my bruised body. I look at the guards keeping me captive. “And there’s no guarantee that I’ll make it to the end.”
“Yes, there is.” She pointed to the mirror. “That’s you. You made it to the end and then you went back. Not through distance, but through time. To get them. And guide them through the passage you are still trailblazing now.”
In the mirror, the future me had won the argument. The wagon was being emptied of nearly all the books and restocked with extra tools and supplies. If I was in charge of loading the wagon, the extra wagon would pay for itself by transporting things that were not crucial to the trek, but would make the passage easier. So if the cost of bringing the extra wagon was too much, it would not be that painful to leave it behind. The future me stopped checking boxes and instead whirled around, looking up in the sky, as if looking for whatever was supplying the mirror with the feed. She looked at where the mirror’s vantage point was, and laughed. I saw her face clearly. That is definitely my face except for one major exception. There was a prominent scar across it. A scar I do not have.
“Why would I lead anyone through the hell I have dragged myself through?” Through the hell I have been thrown into…
“Because stasis is death.” She moved her hand and my sword was thrown at my feet. “Pick it up.”
I didn’t move. My spirit was broken. I had no hope of reaching the end of this journey. I tried. In futility. Her men had hunted me down as prey and captured me with no marks on themselves as payment. I was her captive. I was tired of the cycle. Flee one captivity, only to be bound into another.
She is a beautiful woman, adorned in layered robes of red and orange silk. She took great care to make her presentation as perfect as possible. Her hair adornments reminded me of Japan. The motives on the guards’ armor reminded me of Korea. The servants could have just stepped from Thailand. She held the poise of a queen, but I knew she wasn’t of royal blood. A mercenary herself, her house was one of the deadliest bandit alliances.
I’ve put myself through so much. For what? I escaped one hell only to be mired in another, and another, and another. Hope lies to me. Only despair tells the truth. I’m going to die someday. Today is just like any other. I have no reason to put it off again.
I kicked the sword away. “No honor in killing a tortured dog. Just finish already.”
“Okay.” She snorted her derision. Everyone hates me. If I stand, I’m wrong. If I sit, I’m wrong. Everyone finds a reason to justify hurting me, and they find it so fast. Whatever soothes your conscious, woman. Just get it done and over with. “First, I kill you. Then if they make it this far without you, I will kill the old and breed the children. They will make good pets.” First? Is she going to punish them for my existence? She rushed me, this master assassin, crossing the twenty feet between us in the blink of an eye. My instinct overrode my will and I leaned backwards as she made her strike.
I tumbled away and ended in a crouching attack position. My face was slashed with a wound that would become the scar on future me’s face. The guard closest to where I had kicked the sword stepped on the calamus hilt and harshly kicked it back to me.
“Pick up your sword. Show yourself capable. If you impress me, I not only let you live, but you’ll have free passage through my lands. You intrigue me and I would know if the legends about you are true. If they are, this will be fun for us both. If not, you… and they… die.” The derision had left her voice. A mocking tone replaced it. A torturer taunting her victim.
In the mirror, future me mounted her steed at the head of the convoy. She looked up to the mirror’s vantage point, and flipped off the viewer. I would do that, if I were her. Unnaturally hot blood ran down my face and dropped off my chin to sizzle and singe the cold stone floor. I picked up the sword. I can’t let her hurt them. I can’t… I swallowed the thought and committed to violence yet again.
“I might hurt you, and then your guards will kill me.”
She pulled her sword from a hidden scabbard in the chair. Thin, lean, and edged from point to hilt, it was made to slice through flesh. “Even if you were to kill me, your life is spoken for. I have declared it. Not even my successor can claim right of revenge. The only one here that will kill you is me. I even deny you the right to suicide.”
I dropped to one knee in apparent despair. “Well. Fuck.” She rushed me, crying her disappointment at my lack of engagement. I lowered my head, bracing for an overhead blow. She obliged, coming down with a two-handed grip on her own sword.
~clang~
I had raised my sword over my head and blocked her. The barbs on the blade had caught hers, preventing her from sliding down and slicing my hands. “Dammit, can’t a bitch mope around here?” Her face registered her confusion at the dissonance between my words, my tone, and my action. I threw her blade in one direction, and used that movement to give me rotational inertia to try and sweep her legs out from under her.
She had anticipated the response and was already in mid back flip by the time my leg swept the front. We both came to a steady position on our feet at the same time.
“Madame, I may not be able to get a lick on you, but I aim to strip you of that lovely garment before I’m through. It reminds me of someone, and you are not worthy to wear kir colors.” I smiled and bowed slightly.
Her posture remained rigid, but the tip of her sword wavered. I had found her weakness. Vanity. I would be able to taunt her into making mistakes.
“How dare you! And what makes you so arrogant?” She was excited to have woken me from my stupor, and upset that I would challenge her as a result of it.
I gestured to the mirror. Future me was riding out of range of the mirror, her head and neck wrapped with a cloth to shield from the sun and biting insects. The wrap was a patchwork of familiar red and orange cloth, stitched together from a multitude of scraps. The implication was clear.
“I will survive this. I will survive you. I will reach the end. And then I’ll do it all over again because why the fuck not!”
She screamed obscenities at the mirror, turning towards it long enough for me to lunge forward. I never came close to wounding her, but the sliced hem of her sleeve settled quietly on the floor between us.
She stared at it with unholy rage. “I will hurt you.”, she seethed between clenched teeth.
“Yes, I suppose not all debts are paid in legal tender. Make it interesting. I have a high pain tolerance. If you prove yourself well, I may allow you some modesty.” I smiled. Her rage fueled me. She shall have to choose between protecting her body and protecting the fluttering layers of delicate cloth that was a far easier target. I may not be able to make her bleed. I’ll settle for making her seethe.
She raged. But instead of attacking me, she turned and shattered the mirror. The breaking of the glass broke my awareness of the dream and I was thrown violently awake.