by J.P Jackson
*
He arrived at the village 20 minutes later, staggering as the parasite began to effect his equilibrium. Sun baking his bare back and torso, he immediately dunked his head into the large pot of water next to Bull's hut. Throwing the water over his shoulders and thoroughly enjoying the soak. Taylor heard the clarion call of a horn and pulled his head out of the pot, experiencing an uncanny sense of déjà vu when he noticed the incoming caravan. He squinted, shook his head and scowled.
Taylor had lived through this scene before, and instinctively felt his earlier self close by, as if his mind was in two places at once. It was an unusual sensation, more than a vague premonition, but the feeling of absolute certainty. His torch and the inconsistent variables of time had thrown him into the middle of an earlier adventure.
Priests and workers gathered sacks in the centre of the village. Taylor ducked down behind the pot as the hut wall beside him caved outwards, as if something heavy had struck the mud wall from within.
Bull flung open the hut door and dragged two sacks over his shoulder. Mesha clung to his elbow as Taylor, peering from behind the pot, finally realized when he was. His past self would have his back against this very pot in seconds. Unwilling to introduce himself to himself, Taylor decided instead to tinker with time by sending a warning that might help them both.
He glanced at his left hand and severed pinkie, despite being an inconsequential part of his anatomy, Taylor wanted it back. Using a sharp snag of his torch, he scratched a simple message into the pot. 'Ham don't do the magic trick!'
Taylor stepped back to admire his ingenuity, hoping that when his past self noticed the message, it would prevent the smart ass from showing off in the interrogation room. There were a million more things Taylor wanted to tell himself but with no time left, he hurried to the rear of Bull's hut as the caravan rolled into the village.
The scene played out exactly as he remembered, albeit from a new perspective. The priests inspected the sacks and came to an arrangement amongst themselves. Taylor crept low, watching with curiosity as his past self read the message scratched in the pot.
"Is that really what I look like?”
Taylor brought his focus back to the caravan, fascinated to see Yellow Jack reading his ledger on the lead wagon. He was adorned with glimmering gold feathers and regal looking robes. Still alive, still one of them.
A scuffle erupted between priests and Bull, ending with a knife brandished against Mesha's stomach. Taylor continued to press against the hut, reluctant to interfere with history, at least while his other self was present. He ducked even lower at the sound of a piercing whistle coming from the water pot.
"Everybody get a good fuckin' look!” He heard himself bellow. “My name is Ham Taylor, and you'll want to hear what I have to say!"
Current Taylor rubbed disorientation from his face as he observed his earlier self being beaten, then thrown unconscious into the wagon.
Yellow Jack dusted his hands and then ordered that the sacks be loaded onto the carts. It was then, free from the eyes of his own past self, that Taylor was overwhelmed by an irresistible desire to change everything.
"Okay!” he yelled, walking nervously into the open. “Everybody get another good fuckin' look!”
Priests, workers, and Yellow Jack turned to face the man from the future.
"That's right!” Taylor announced, thinking on his feet, still unsure what he was doing. “That's me you just threw in that wagon!”
With blank expressions all round, Yellow Jack approached Taylor with caution, ignoring the objections from priests behind him.
The pair met in the middle, surrounded by gawking eyes and gaping mouths. Jack towered over Taylor, lanky arms at his side as if ready to draw. The bird clicked and the human sneered.
"You'll need to lower your intelligence quotient if you want to talk.”
"Who are you?” Jack asked, deeply suspicious. “Why should I not break you?”
Taylor scratched an itch from his brow and raised his torch. “Because you know what this is. And you don't want to hurt anyone, quite the contrary.”
Jack appeared twitchy. “You do not know me.”
"You're a Yellow Jackanine,” Taylor explained. “Secretary General of the Jackanine Council. My name is Ham Taylor, a friend you don't know yet.”
Yellow Jack took a defensive step back. “I suppose you want me to remove you from the cage?”
Taylor shook his head. “Nah. He's fine where he is.”
"If you stay in cage, you will be arrested, you will be interrogated.”
"Been there. Done that.”
Yellow Jack rubbed his beak, connecting the dots faster than Taylor could arrange them.
Taylor understood that by avoiding the ship completely, also meant avoiding the mesomite currently swelling his brain. Without that experience, he would not have touched the golden box and would not be standing where he was now. Learning Penelope's fate however, was the most important thing, and that knowledge came as a direct result of being aboard the mothership, a memory Taylor had to hold onto it. At all costs.
"What do you want from me?” Jack whispered, stepping forward again.
"Apophis suspects you are a human sympathizer. He's onto you, Jack. Listen carefully, during my interrogation the general will cut off my finger. I left myself a message not to test his patience but don't think I paid much attention.”
Taylor revealed the stump of his severed pinkie. “You will not show me any sympathy,” he insisted. “None whatsoever. Comforting me in that moment is the act that gets you locked up...and subsequently killed.”
He had Jack's attention. "Why would an Earthling interfere with time to save my life?”
Taylor winked and patted his arm. “I'm saving your life so that you'll save mine. We fought side by side in a bloody arena. Floating orbs, a giant cat and skull stomping elephants.”
Yellow Jack's eyes glistened with fear as Taylor continued.
"You helped me escape, together we raised the grate over the garbage chute. Without you I can't raise the grate, and therefore won’t escape the arena. Get it?”
"Ham Taylor you want me to sabotage the grate before the event, thus allowing you free passage into the chute.”
Taylor smiled, relieved. “If you don't succeed, I'll die up there and disappear down here. My life is in your hands.”
Taylor briefly considered the potential outcome of his current actions but it was too late, he was already neck deep in unknown territory.
Before Jack returned to the caravan, Taylor made one final request.
"The big guy in the wagon. Let him go.”
Jack's beak chattered as if laughing. “The man is a barbarian. You saw what he did to my men.”
"These priests,” Taylor met Jack's eye, “are not your men.”
Jack lowered his shoulders and sighed. “You may be the death of me, Ham Taylor.”
"You have no idea. Come see me when you're done.”
Jack returned to the caravan, ordering priests to open the cage and release Bull.
It took four priests to remove Bull from the cage and set him on the sand. When they did, something remarkable happened. When originally locked in the cage, Taylor had used his shirt to make a sling and secure Bull's broken collarbone. With Bull no longer in the wagon, Taylor's past self would not have removed his shirt to make the sling. He gasped with wonder as his tattered red shirt weaved itself into existence over his bare chest, but this was no magic trick, just a rippling consequence of manipulating with time.
Taylor chuckled and rolled up his sleeves, but his high spirits were brought crashing down to earth by Yellow Jack, who had a last warning to impart. “You are tampering with forces you cannot possibly comprehend. No matter how this turns out, The Time Keepers will have you answer for this.”
"Time Keepers?”
"You will almost certainly see,” he concluded, stepping onto the lead wagon. “They will come for you, Ham Taylo
r, and soon.”
The priests sealed the cage, leaving past Taylor to face interrogation, Apophis, and the amphitheatre alone.
With the caravan rolling out of the village, Mesha and Taylor assisted Bull to the hut. Taylor lay him before the burnt out fire then made another sling for his arm, this time using sheets instead of his shirt. When his guardian's arm was secure, Taylor left him to sleep.
Outside, he bent over the pot and gazed at his warping reflection in the water. Yellow Jack was right, he was meddling with forces he could not comprehend. His recent actions concerned him, his bravado and impulsiveness were out of control. Taylor stared into his own tired eyes and asked himself for a return to patience, and reason.
"Enough of the John Wayne shite.”
After dunking his head in the pot, Taylor wiped the water from his face and saw nervous priests approach him. Soaking wet and in no mood for them, he pretended to pounce forward.
“Boo!”
The startled priests ran toward their temple while the rest of the villagers kept their distance, appearing more confused than anything else. Taylor waved an apologetic hand at them, turned his back then hobbled toward the river. The growing mesomite poison sent stabbing pains down the back of his neck, like forks of fire through his spinal cord.
Reaching the bank, he waded wearily into the Nile, the cool water rising over his boots and soaking into his jeans. He threw himself in and allowed his limp body to sink. Seconds later, Taylor ascended for air with a relieved smile on his face. The pain subsided and the burning abated, the growth however, continued to pulse.
After wiping the water from his face, Taylor noticed Mesha watching him on the bank. She also looked confused, but not as scared as the others.
"Your man will be fine. Trust me, it's better this way.”
Mesha turned and gestured Taylor to follow. She hurried to the hut opposite her own, which was guarded round the clock by an adolescent sentry. Once Taylor had caught up, and once she confirmed that all priests were out of the area, the young sentry stepped aside and Mesha entered the hut.
The interior was cold and musty. The window was sealed with wood and what light there was revealed a small straw bed and nothing of interest. The moment the door was closed, Mesha pulled the bed away from the wall and Taylor lit the room with his torch.
There was a stone slab under the bed, which Mesha urged Taylor to move. When he bent to move the slab Mesha's eyes bulged with fear when she noticed the back of Taylor's morbidly swelling head. Trying his best to reassure her, Mesha held her mouth, shook her head and hurried outside. The door slammed behind her and Taylor was left alone.
“That was reassuring.”
Getting to his knees, he slid the slab aside to reveal a dark pit filled with secrets. It was roughly 7 feet deep and stacked on all sides was a cache of alien objects, metallic orbs the size of footballs, small flat discs, spear like staffs, short knives, clubs and a multitude of other strange objects. It was an arsenal, and the makings of a resistance.
Taylor stepped into the pit and gawked as he shone the torch's light over the inventory. He carefully examined a lion shaped skull with teeth longer than his forearm. Putting it down, he selected a glassy bauble from a stack and rolled it in his hands. It weighed no more than an apple and reflected his face in the surface.
He returned it, then selected an elongated golden gun from a wooden shelf. It was a gravity defying tool like the one used to raise boulders and himself over the Giza Plateau. It's weight was substantial, in fact he could barely cradle the thing in both arms. Grimacing, he inserted his left arm into a hole at the stock, a slot just fat enough for his fist. There was a click inside the gun and Taylor felt his index finger graze against the trigger. Without warning, a sonic boom exploding out of the barrel, blowing Taylor back and launching the stone slab through the hut's roof.
Stunned and with stars in his eyes, Taylor threw down the gun as the slab soared skyward. The light left Taylor's torch and when his ears stopped ringing, he felt a growing tremor in the earth around him. The weapons in the pit rattled from their shelves and boxes.
“Is this me?”
Taylor searched for the cause but the quake had no obvious origin. The hut shook and a caramel coloured crack appeared underneath him, enveloping Taylor in brilliant light. He tried to move but his body was trapped, paralyzed by the supernatural light. A sudden burst of movement followed and Taylor braced himself as he was pressed against a rising podium, growing out of the hut and racing for the clouds. Screaming through gritted teeth, he punched through the stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. Then on, away from Earth and out into space, passed the moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. His speed increased to unfathomable levels, ripping him out of the Milky Way, passed galaxies, condensing super-clusters and eventually a network of intertwined veins. He went higher still, higher and faster, witnessing the entirety of the universe falling beneath him. There, at the summit of all existence, Taylor's podium came to a halt.
A glowing shield shimmered and warped around his body, providing Taylor with oxygen and his own gravitational field. His shoulders sprung to his ears when he heard the disembodied sound of voices from above. Human voices.
"Who are you?” he asked, his voice echoing above the universe. “Is this real?” he yelled, craning his neck to look at nothing. “I must be dreaming.”
"You see?” argued one voice to another, in coherent English. “His brain is too small, he cannot possibly understand.”
"He asks for confirmation,” replied a softly spoken female. “This is understandable given the constraints of his own reality. Taylor has the power of imagination, and more than enough intelligence to comprehend the situation.”
Taylor continued to look around him, seeing the universe below and nothing above as he considered his next question.
"Hamilton Taylor,” said an old man's voice. “Are we...Gods?”
"No,” he responded, instinctively. “You're not Gods.”
"Why do you say that?” the female asked, soon after.
"Because Gods wouldn't need to ask.”
Taylor wobbled as he stood, hearing their chuckling coming from nothing.
"What then,” demanded the elder male, ”do you presume we are?”
"You are people,” he returned, feeling their penetrating eyes in the darkness. “People just like me.”
The voices went quiet for a moment, as if waiting for Taylor to fill in the blanks. Hands on his hips, he didn’t disappoint. “I guess you brought me here because I am, as one Jackanine put it, a meddler of time. You are The Time Keepers, some kind of universal authority here to read me The Riot Act. That about right?”
The voices chatted amongst themselves and Taylor left them to it until they were ready to address him.
"Very good,” said the older, more skeptical voice. “Taylor we are indeed The Time Keepers, an assembly of entities from across the universe governing the rule of time. We are here primarily to see that time is left unmolested. Unfortunately you are more than a mere meddler, but a molester. You have recently on two occasions attempted to readdress time to meet your own ends. The first was when you scratched a message onto a water pot. The second was when you diverted a Jackanine from his preordained path. These are very serious matters.”
Taylor raised his arms and voice as he retorted. “If the Jackanine's path was preordained then it could not be altered. Destinies can be changed because the law of the universe decrees it. I know this because time travel is possible, and therefore is meant to be meddled with.”
The elderly man interjected. “Our laws Taylor, are ancient and unbreakable, not to be walked over by an ant! The impertinence of man is astonishing!”
Taylor forced a belly-laugh. “Ants can lift hundreds of times their own body weight. You mock my brain then get all pissy when I'm smart enough to play with your toys.”
"In any case, you are here because you have been charged with attempted subversion
of the fourth dimension. How do you plead?”
Taylor looked up and yelled “Ignorance!”
The Time Keepers sardonically snickered.
"He is a feisty one,” said an amused female voice. “He doesn't care one iota for authority. Hubris perhaps, or perhaps the blame lies with us for underestimating man's abilities? Perhaps this assembly should also accept that arrogance has led us to ignorance?”
Her comment inspired heated debate back and forth, voices throwing accusations at each other with Taylor caught in the middle. In the end, it was left to the elderly male voice to rein in tempers.
"Hamilton Taylor, you will be granted a stay of sentence until we can further discuss the matter. Ignorance is your plea and it will be considered. You will be summoned by force to this assembly when we have reached a conclusion. We will meet again. Do you have any parting words that might sway our decision one way or the other?”
"Yeah,” he said, glancing to the vastness below. “Thanks for showing me the universe. That alone was worth hearing your bullshit.”
Before he knew it, Taylor was falling as fast as he had risen, stomach pressed to his throat as the podium descended into the light of the universe and the Milky Way, passed stars, into our solar system and finally back to Earth and Ancient Egypt.
On his belly, leg dangling into the pit, Taylor heard a familiar voice ask.
"How can I help you?”
— CHAPTER SIXTEEN —
