Jasper's time jump took him to a strange planet with a red sky, where he was strapping on armour. That wasn't what he wanted. He was not on the warrior path; he was a mystic and the time jump was part of his esoteric training. Jasper was twenty years old and still only in the first year of his studies, but already he was bending time.
He paused in pulling on the metallic sleeve with its lining of netting and tried to change from a war theme to a ring of cosy village huts around a thriving market. That was his ideal, but he couldn't manage to dream an alternative reality, so the armour scenario continued, with the addition now of a page solemnly holding out a sword to him on a cushion. As the blade caught the light this was obviously supposed to be a thrilling moment, but he wasn't thrilled and sought again for a means of escape. There was none; he found himself in a large field in front of a castle, the field bordered by a row of miniature hedges, and a crowd was assembled watching him expectantly.
The page's lips parted, and he whispered something reverent although too soft to be heard, and Jasper wished intently that he could find something other than the sword to seize upon: a magic wand, perhaps, with a sparkling crystal at the top? Or a scroll with inspirational writings inscribed on it in fine inks? But the crowd was waiting, so he finally lifted the sword in the air and cried, "I pledge to bring peace and creative art to this kingdom, not war." He appeared to be speaking in his native language.
A cheer erupted, and that at least was welcome as golden beams slanted down mixing with the red in the sky and glinted off the sword once again.
More armed men came forward from the side of the castle, and began to march. Jasper found himself marching at the head of them, and he only knew which way to go because a scout on horseback indicated with an exaggerated gesture and called out, "this way!"
He was seriously thinking about doing a second time jump but his superiors in the Void Star Lodge had advised him to leave at least a week between them, and they had also said that it was fine for the journey to be all in his head in meditation or a dream, as it usually manifested. Except that this wasn't; it was completely physical and real. A distant memory nudged at his mind of a film about time travel he had seen in his childhood, in which the protagonist once came to and found himself naked on a battlefield. As they marched along he saw a faint blue vortex etched on the sky and wondered if it belonged to another time jumper who was also going to find this too real for their taste. If so, maybe they could get acquainted. Maybe it was a beautiful girl?
His reverie was interrupted by the scout calling out, "Turn left!" He changed direction, and as the others followed him the countryside changed too and became more rugged, although there were still some green plants. All the vegetation was quite different from what he was familiar with on Earth. On one side they had passed by many enormous brown fronds waving and towering above them. Near the ground were thick, silky blades like large reeds and various unknown flowering bushes.
After a few hours' marching they reached a sheltered gully where they stopped, and a number of the men began to set up camp. As Jasper seemed to be their leader he knew there was no need to help them, which at least spared him the indignity of the others finding out that he knew nothing of how to do it. He sat down on the ground which was a mixture of small rocks and the reed-like blades of grass, and began to review his position seriously.
No doubt he would soon be expected to fight, that being the purpose of the sword and armour, and the only form of combat he had ever learned was a martial art intended primarily for spiritual training, known as Combat Unlock. It was Void Star's own, and despite their belonging to the Chaos Magic tradition it was based on the same principles as its predecessors in the old world such as Kung Fu and Tai Chi. Defence was preferable to attack, and the main aim of the training was to strengthen and purify all the vehicles: body, mind and soul. In this year of 2091 Chaos Magic had become the dominant branch of the esoteric and was respected, unlike its beginnings in the twentieth century when it was a fringe interest of a rebellious minority.
Jasper didn't want to be branded a coward, but there was no way he could possibly enter on this form of warfare using swords and shields without any experience and avoid either being killed or wounded or discovered to be an imposter; maybe all three of these would happen one after the other. It was imperative to find a way of exiting the situation. He wondered what had happened to the real knight he was supposed to be. Had they somehow switched bodies, or was the original knight imprisoned somewhere either in flesh or in spirit?
The page appeared with food and drink for him on a wooden tray: some kind of noodle concoction with pieces of meat and sauce, and the drink looked spiced but not alcoholic. Of course it would be unwise to get drunk while on a campaign. The page had obviously been eating before he served food to his master, because a noodle still lingered around his cheek. He was very young and fair-skinned; his clothes were of a material like velvet and a little puffy, and he regarded Jasper with large, nervous blue eyes as he handed him his dinner. Jasper realized he had no idea of the etiquette any more than he knew who the page was. He felt like patting him on the head but did not know what reaction that would cause, so he simply said, "thank you", took the food and began to eat. It tasted very good.
The sun was lower now as the men walked about camp and posted guards by strong fences at the perimeter. Most of them wore armour the same as Jasper's while a few were in more civilian clothes made of generally medieval-looking materials mainly in green and brown. Their colouring and features looked eastern European- maybe they were, and this was somehow Earth on another dimension, despite the red sky and strange plants.
It looked like Jasper had a few hours to plan his next move before it was a matter of marching out to fight some foe, or alternatively settling down for the night, probably to fight tomorrow. His eyes searched the sky for the blue vortex as all he could think of was to pin his hopes on that.
At last he saw the tell-tale smudge over towards the western horizon. Did he need an excuse to walk over that way? He knew that if he attracted too much attention leaving the camp the company would be saddling a horse for him, and maybe providing an escort. Stealth was of the utmost importance.
He stood up and began to move casually towards the perimeter, feeling conspicuous in his armour and marching boots. Everyone was still busy, so he quickened his pace a little and headed for a gap that had been left in the fence. From the materials that were stacked beside it he could tell that a gate was shortly to be fixed there.
Still no-one looked at him as he slipped out which was a relief, but the anxiety soon hit again as he walked, making sure not to look behind him. As he closed the gap between the camp and the formation in the sky the vortex became more defined, with ridges at the edge like a rubber tyre and flecks of something unknown floating towards the centre. The nearer he came to it the more he wondered why it hadn't attracted the attention of the other men. But it appeared they had been trained to keep looking straight ahead while they marched. It must be only because he was the leader that he had been able to get away with looking all around him at the unfamiliar scenery and from time to time also glancing up at the sky. Their leader- what a joke that was. He didn't know their names or anything about them.
As he drew level with the ruched clouds a being appeared in the sky and descended on some kind of conical shaped parachute. It had a body a bit like a platypus with a smooth, floppy torso and limbs and a duck-like face. It spoke.
"Go back! Why are you running away from your mission?"
That smart from earlier came back. "Look, whoever you are, I'm not a coward!" he snapped. "I'm well-trained in martial arts combat. But I can't sword fight, I haven't learned how to, and I don't even know who I'm supposed to be or how to use any of his stuff. It's unreasonable!"
A frown crossed the bird-like face. "Something must have gone wrong, then. You should be him through and through. You should know everything he knows, and you shouldn't remember me."
"I DON'T remember you. But whatever's going on let's stop being stupid, go back to the beginning and start again." Jasper was furious at himself at how much he dreaded going into sword fights with no preparation, yet he knew he was in the right in this argument. You shouldn't just throw your life away.
After what seemed an endless pause the strange creature waved its flipper in a gesture that looked more like throwing a ball than beckoning and said shortly, "you'll have to come up here and we'll move you. But I'll make sure your people see you rise up, so they think their hero has gone to a meeting in Heaven and will be coming back to them later."
"How?" Jasper asked, pointedly not showing any emotion at having been saved from certain death.
"Just put your arms out in front of you and jump slightly."
It was as if a laser beam caught him as he jumped and lifted him into the sky, although he saw nothing but the castellated walls of the round vortex, huge now and arched over him in a tunnel formation.
He expected his destination to be some kind of holding station, neither the place he had been living before he jumped nor the abode of this alien who had so casually said, "We'll move you." As it turned out, the place where he emerged after being sucked backwards along the tunnel was a leafy clearing in what appeared to be an area of light jungle.
He was still wearing the armour, but the sword had gone- where? Back to some maiden at the bottom of a lake? That summed up his feelings about the sword; it seemed to be the focal point of whatever magic was happening in the world he had just left. Soon he found a linen tunic lying on the grass which had obviously been provided for him, although it could hardly be called proper clothes, and he began slowly to take off the armour.
Half an hour later he was wearing the tunic and exploring the jungle for basic means of survival. Small trees were growing everywhere, and he gripped their trunks and pulled himself through the spongy ground. So far he hadn't seen any inhabitants, not even any animals. He soon discovered a kind of sweet pink fruit growing on bushes near the ground which could be both eaten and drunk. They had a webby flesh and abundant thin, watery juice. After finding these he began to relax a little, though he was still wading through sludge with no idea where he was going.