The Traveller

The wind blew gently against the sail as the hand cart rolled down the old rails. Thick grey fog masked the nearby water which could be heard lapping at the small gravely bridge that contained this stretch of the track.

“If there is an answer, I’ll find it,” I said to myself. The answer. The answer that I was looking for wasn’t even the answer to a question but the question itself. Three years ago, by my reckoning, I was a student, attending normal classes at any normal school. My people had just gone to war several months before but my life was far removed from the war and life continued on despite the ravaging along the front lines. The fighting was brutal along the front lines as news came in every day along the wires that trenches and towns were over run by either our side or the enemy. It seemed every day key positions changed hands and the loss of life on both sides was starting to bring the public against the whole war. It was around that time that our leaders got a new answer.

A strange inventor was all over the news. He claimed he had a new invention that would revolutionize the whole war, brining it to a quick end. Our leaders assured us that this new weapon would guarantee our nation’s victory. Little was talked about the machine for fear of enemy spies but several pieces of information made its way out over the radios, however once it was released no one could stop talking about it. Taller then anything anyone had ever seen, the machine decimated the enemy’s lines and pushed our forces deep within their borders. Then one day the news changed, the machine detoured from its normal path and headed into the mountains.

After half a month of slaughter and fear on both sides our army made a terrible realisation, they had lost control of the weapon. It had, to everyone’s horror, developed its own thoughts, its own will, which it alone followed, a will to destroy. Nothing was safe from the relentless march of the machine. Entire villages were destroyed as the machine made its way through the mountains. One day, news came in that a stretch of old rail roads had been destroyed. Nothing used the rails built high in the mountains but legend held that the northern rail line was some ageless stretch of track called the Rails of Time. Despite the rumours about what the machine was doing both sides had called a hasty truce and together the armies of all the peoples of these lands gathered to face the terrifying weapon, to stop it before it destroyed us all. Then the dreams started.

The first of the dreams was almost a month before the final battle was to take place and then I thought they were just nightmares, fears of mine that ran loose while I slept. But then the dream came again the next night, and again the night after that; nightmares, horrific dreams of terrifying depravities never before imagined. A world in ruin. I became convinced that these dreams were meant to show me something; perhaps a vision of what was to come. Then, one night I dreamt myself on the field of battle against the weapon, a battle I knew to be several weeks away.

As I looked out over the landscape I could see the thousands of dead bodies of soldiers and the ruined hulk of the weapon that was to annihilate everything. As I awoke the next morning something inside me knew that wasn’t the end. Over the next several nights the dreams continued. I watched as the armies gathered in front of the weapon. I watched the battle progress. I watched the last soldier strike the blow that destroyed the weapon; all the while I knew something else was wrong. Only a few nights before that terrible battle would take place the dream changed. I remember dreaming about the aftermath of the war and that how even with the great weapon destroyed nothing changed.

I remember watching as entire cities were obliterated, the people, mercilessly slaughtered as they ran from something that I knew was just out of my view. Both nations screamed at the other to stop and both denied they knew what was going on. Eventually another war broke out and in the end everything laid dead or dying and my people, only a memory on a dead world.
I was never truly sure why, but the day before the final battle that I knew would lead to the ruin of everything I left my house and my family. To the south of my village, high in the mountains was a set of old railroad tracks. No one knew how they got there or even why but I was compelled to follow them. I remember walking down the tracks all morning before I found that handcart. It was the strangest one I had ever seen because instead of the lever system to push the cart along it boasted a sail. The sail had already been trimmed and managed to fully capture the gentle breeze that blew down the tracks. Whatever compelled me to get on that cart has lead me to conclude that these tracks were another piece of the Rails of Time.

Built by an ancient civilisation that disappeared thousands of years before my ancestors were born, the Rails of Time were said to allow a person to explore the world through time, to perhaps even change events yet to come. Whether I’m right about it the wonders and events I’ve witnessed since I started my journey could only be explained if these were indeed the tracks spoken of in myths and legends.

As I had said, for three years I’ve journeyed down these tracks and done many things along the way. Each time the fog lifts and the breeze dies down, I’ve been compelled to seek something. Over my travels I’ve collected so much that I’m no longer certain what I truly need for what ever it is I’m doing. It bothered me sometimes, this compulsion to go someplace, to do something. I’ve worried that I’m loosing control of myself but usually my fears are allayed when I sleep, knowing that I’m doing something I’m sure will save my people.

Today the fog lifted again and I could make out the general shape of a castle over looking the lake that this stretch of track was on. The water lapping at the side of the tracks was quiet and calming, but the small itch in the back of my head grew; I knew there was something here I needed to get, something I needed to do. Looking up towards the sky I had to shield my eyes but the sight of the setting sun was beautiful against the moons overhead, seven of them I noted. Then it hit me, in my own time, if I can still keep that time straight from all the ones I’ve travelled to, there were only six moons in orbit. I knew then that I had been sent back over a thousand years to a time before the Great Collision.

The cart rolled to a stop and I quickly gathered the supplies I was going to need before pulling bushes over the cart, hiding it from a casual glance. By the time night had completely fallen and the stars were shining brightly, I had walked some distance into the countryside, away from the castle I had seen along the coast. I remember reading about these lands in my history classes, but as I’ve learned along my journey; history is usually wrong.

Climbing over the next hill I knew I had come to the right place, but how I knew bothered me, even after all these years. The small village before me was dark except for the single inn that kept a few candles in the windows so travellers like me could find it. I laughed to myself as I walked in, thinking about how strange I probably look to the people of this time. The innkeeper was bewildered to say the least but he didn’t argue when gold had been passed his way. My room wasn’t to bad but it should prove to be a fair margin better then that stupid cart.
The next morning I knew things were coming along well, but so many questions were still unanswered. Why was I here, in this village? What did it have to do with everything else? The dreams? Whatever the reasons I knew that it would reveal itself in time because this was the right place for it, what ever it was. Wandering around the small village I noticed that most of the townsfolk were morose and seemingly downtrodden. It wasn’t until I finally talked to one of the village doomsayers that I got my answer.

Astrologers had been studying the skies for several decades before they had found out that two of the moons shared similar orbits. Eons of orbits around the world would come to an end tonight when those two moons collided, raining debris onto my world; tonight was the night of the Great Collision. As the revelation hit me I remembered back, years ago, to my own school days and the reports about the war. The geology class that I was taking before I left was covering rare and exotic metals. When the two moons collided, or will collide parts that were knocked away fused together, forming a new metal. A metal that had been crucial to the construction of the weapon that was going to or had already destroyed my people and my world.

This time I knew what I was going to do even before I felt compelled to. If I collected all the moon fragments of decent size, then the weapon couldn’t be created in my own time, or even my own past. A great surge of pride welled up inside me as I waited for night to fall. Finally I felt that my journey could be completed, that everything I had done would finally mean the salvation of my people.

When the sun finally fell below the hills around the town everyone gathered in the centre of the small village. The entire population had gathered, men, women, children, all were staring up at the sky as the two moons made their slow arcs across the sky. After an hour or so my neck was hurting but I couldn’t shift my gaze from the sight.

At the appointed hour the two moons collided. Watching the sight unfold was simply spectacular and eerie all at once. Silently they impacted each other, sending out a faint ring of debris. As the dust cloud cleared around the moon over an hour later the sight that I saw was familiar, the cracked surface of the moon, the strange shape; the impact had brought about the familiar moon that I knew throughout my youth. Then, just as the villagers were getting ready to leave, convinced it was over a deafening crash hit the village.

I looked up and knew that the initial shockwave of the collision had finally hit us. Above my head fragments from that ring of debris started streaking across the night sky. In awe, the villagers watched as one piece of the moons flew overhead and slammed into one of the near-by hills. The explosion kicked up a huge cloud of dirt and soil into the air and causing the ground to quake. Instantly the villagers started screaming and running in every direction for cover.

Even before the compulsion set in I was running towards the impact sight, I needed that chunk, and the others like it. Their absence from history would bring about the salvation of my people. I threw my hands into the still hot ground and pulled away the layer of earth that covered the object I sought. My hands moved with a will of their own through the charred soil and as my arms ached I pulled out the small chunk of metal for which I had been digging.

Holding it up I was surprised at how heavy such a small object was. My head was spinning, as I held the piece of metal in front of me; the warmth of the smooth surface reflected the starlight. Grandiose thoughts raced through my head and I was ecstatic that my goals had finally become clear. My head was swimming with excitement and I was thinking about how I was going to find the other fragments of the moons when I set the chunk down on the cart to which I had barely realised I’d returned.

Stopping for a short rest I drank some of the water that I had stored on my cart, my head still swimming with glee. Inside me another feeling was rising, that small itch at the back of my neck. That was how I knew I was going to do something but this time I was eager, ready to go find the other pieces. Again without my own thoughts my hands began to shift the sail on the cart; turning it around my heart sank as I realised with horror that I was preparing the cart to go back down the rails that I had travelled down to get here.

My mind began to race, as I started screaming at my self, “No! Not yet. The other fragments!” I pleaded with myself, what was I doing? I knew I needed the pieces of the moon to save my world but my mind was failing at stopping my body. Tears streamed down my eyes now as I practically watch myself push the cart down the Rails of Time, away from the only hope I knew of saving my people.

I cried heavily as the soft sound of lapping water pierced the grey fog that now rolled in, hiding the castle that moved past. My own tears fell on the cart as I thought to my self. What was my purpose out here, if not to stop the machine? What was the point? I felt anger welling inside of me, a silent rage I’d harboured all this time. My own fate I knew was tied to the Rails of Time and I hated them for that. The Rails brought me through time. The Rails compelled me to collect certain items. The Rails controlled what life I still had. What was I to do now, knowing that I didn’t even control my own actions. Questions raced through my mind but the one I needed to ask I knew still escaped me. And because of that I had no control, not of myself, my destiny perhaps not even control over the fate of my people that I had been lead to believe I had. Then I realised I had control of one thing, it raged through me and I focused it at the Rails of Time. I had my anger, my anger for these Rails of Time, which were dragging me along, begging me to ask the question that was constantly eluding me.

Copyright 06.2003

The story "The Traveller" is the property of Jeff Fischer and can not be reprinted or redistributed without my permission.