2. Time Travel for Beginners

Ismaraldah was the only Goddess of Time. It meant she’d never had lessons and had tried for centuries, alone, to understand how time travel worked. Until her sister came and she finally wasn’t alone anymore. Though Jacintah has even more to learn, she thought.

She turned some clocks and pushed her black hind paw against a lever. Laying on the bench, she waited for the wild ride to be over.

This time, however, she landed surprisingly softly. Suspicious. She checked all the clocks. Hmm, they all look right. Better go check.

She kicked open the door and rolled outside. Soaking wet. She paddled with her paws until she found the clock’s edge again and didn’t let go. Two suns made an ocean shimmer that stretched all the way to the horizon. As far as Ismaraldah could see, her current location was nothing but ocean.

There was nothing else—except right in front of her. A lonely egg, green and covered in seaweed, floated towards her. Oh, how cute. I’ve always wanted a darling chick. Or maybe it’s a turtle!

She carefully put the egg in a basket. Once inside, she turned the clocks again.

This time she didn’t even seem to land. She had pulled the handbrake three times already, but still heard no sound. Where’s Jacintah when you need her?

With a sigh, she stepped out and her feet sank deep into the ground. She looked down and startled. She stood on a cloud and could see the whole world below her. Or, rather, one whole world. It looked different from where she’d just been with her sister.

The horizon roared with thunder. A crying Smallcloud flew away from much larger clouds.

“Hey, hey, come here. What’s going on?”

She couldn’t quite see if the cloud was looking at her—their white eyes were always hard to find.

“The Chiefcloud is mean,” he sobbed. “He’s asking me to do all kinds of stupid things I don’t want to.”

“Like what?”

“He wants me to tell the dinosaurs to punish the other beasts if they do anything wrong. H–He calls the Little Ones his subjects.”

“Ah. Then I’m in the wrong place.”

In the current time line, she thought, this is about the right time period for gunpowder. Just the wrong continent.

She hurried away. “Sorry, I have to go!”

“But … but what should I do?”

Ismaraldah thought for a moment. “You know what, just tell the dinosaur Donte that an asteroid is coming for this world. And that he should save himself.”

“Is that really true?”

Rapidly, she entered her Timecore without giving a response. No more goodbyes, she thought.

She dipped her paw in an inkpot and wrote down her promise to the cloud, underneath a list of nearly fifty other promises.

She steered for a third time and landed on something hard. So hard, in fact, that she flew off the bench and tumbled. Her head hurt. Dizzy, she stood up, kicked open the door, and walked over large boulders towards a bridge in the distance.

The wooden bridge was long and spanned a wildly churning river. It swayed in the hard wind. The thick ropes holding the whole thing looked eager to snap at any moment.

The cat standing in the middle of the bridge didn’t seem bothered. He mixed the contents of three bowls into one.

“Finally!” he yelled at the rocks. “Saltpeter, charcoal, and now the final element …”

Ismaraldah walked onto the bridge. But the cat still didn’t see her; he kept shouting into the void. Although—

On closer observation, the rocks in the distance swarmed with animals, their eyes fixated on the water.

“… sulfur! I’ll teach those filthy rats a lesson!”

Ismaraldah coughed loudly. “You’re trying to make a substance that can explode, I assume?”

After a low growl, he looked up. “Yes? So? Who are you? Go away. I have a race to win.”

“Just a helpful passerby. You have the recipe wrong. Not saltpeter, but parsley.”

“Oh. Are you sure? You don’t look like an alchemist.”

“I am. Why do you think my fur is this black? I’ve tried to make gunpowder hundreds of times, but it kept exploding in my face!”

“Ha,” the cat suddenly smiled friendly. “Then you’re not a good alchemist.”

“I am now. A desert fox is not taken twice in the same snare!”

“What? What’s a desert fox?”

Ismaraldah often forgot that she spoke with sayings that came from the future, including animals that didn’t exist yet.

The river below her came to life. Creatures splashed through the wild water, egged on by the animals between the rocks.

“What are they doing!?” Ismaraldah said. “That’s terribly dangerous!”

“What are they doing? They cheated and threw me out of their race. I’ll teach them a lesson! Come on, go get that parsley of yours!”

“Oh no we won’t!”

She gnawed through a rope and the bridge tilted. Plank after plank fell into the water, and the cat was able to flee a good distance, but not far enough.

He fell. The major splash made even Ismaraldah wet. The cat was sucked under as more and more beasts swam through the water underneath her, performing their “race”.

Strange creatures, she thought. It’s always something strange in this time period. This is the LAST time I’m coming here.

She shuffled back to her vehicle and lay exhausted on the bench. She had all the time in the world. Even if she stayed here, sleeping for days, she could travel back to the Battle of Baroke and no one would know she’d been gone.

It was the advantage of time travel, but also the disadvantage. Why do something now? Tomorrow was fine too. Or next year.

There was of course an even bigger, terrible disadvantage—but she didn’t want to think about that right now.

Reluctantly, she pulled the lever again and flashed back to the heath.

She woke up from raindrops on her roof: the ceaseless noise of arrows shooting into the clock. She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping.

The clock spun halfway around, pushing her flat against the door. It flew open and then flung her onto the grass. She looked up and saw a large wolf snout.

“A spy! A spy! She was hiding in my shield!”

“No, you idiot, that’s my time machine—uh—house. You’re using my home as a shield? How dare you!?”

Everyone ran away, even the commander lions.

Ismaraldah cried out. “Stop! There are hundreds of archers on the other side.”

A gigantic ape leapt from his branch. The ground shook and leaves spontaneously fell from the trees at his landing. “Take her to our hideout. We’ll interrogate her there.”

“Please, my sister is wandering around here somewhere. I have to find her.”

“I know. She saved our deer. We tried to protect her, but she disappeared. Out of nowhere. As if she … dissolved into the air.”

Curse the godchildren, sister, she thought. You know you can’t do that when others are around!

The ape looked shocked. He ran away from her on two legs, ahead of the line.

“Shields up!”

He saw something. His body leaned forward even more—and then didn’t know how fast to run back.

“They’re sending a rhino our way! Quick, get that elephant of ours.”

“That elephant? You don’t even know his name?”

“Welcome to the Second Conflict. I prefer survival over remembering ten thousand names.”

Roughly, he lifted her up. A fox ran over and quickly pressed her snout against his hand.

“Don’t be so mean. Let me guide her to safer places.”

The ape growled and let Ismaraldah go. The fox caught her—only to throw her back into the bushes. Arrows slammed against the shield wall with deafening crashes. The fox also jumped between the bushes.

“I saw what your sister did. She’s a Spacefolder, right? Bring her to us. With your powers we can win this battle, without any more casualties.”

“Why would I do that? Why do you think I’m on your side? Or have you forgotten how this whole conflict began? I haven’t. I’ve seen it, over and over and over again, in millions of timelines.”

The fox frowned. “There’s little time. Will you do it or not?”

“Hmpf.” No real answer came. When Ismaraldah climbed a tree, the fox looked satisfied as she rejoined the wolf line.

She had just grabbed her branch when she heard stomping and snorting from the left. Softly, as if butterflies were fluttering by her ears. All this time, however, the area underneath her stayed empty.

The sound grew louder until it bothered her. Then she realized what was happening: the noise simply wasn’t coming from beasts on the floor.

A swarm of large pigeons—more than she could count—flew towards her. Some had empty feet, others carried ferrets, raccoon dogs, and even half-apes. They regularly dropped one of their passengers to make a second line of soldiers.

The invention of gunpowder was a fixed point too, so it would come eventually, but fortunately, thanks to her, they at least didn’t have anything to explode in this time period.

She hurried to the foremost branch and wrapped her tiny tail around it, until she hung next to a still fox.

“Erm—miss fox—are those with you?” she whispered in her ear.

The fox anxiously followed her outstretched paw. Her mouth fell open and her tail shot straight up. “Uh—no. General! General!”

She ran off, pulling along all creatures around her. A new barrage of arrows was on its way, so the wolves held their shields on their backs as they fled.

Ismaraldah stayed behind, watching the pigeon squadron with motionless eyes. They could almost touch her now. Gracefully, she dove into the bushes below her.

Can anyone see me? No? Good.

She closed her eyes and blew out a long breath. Red light surrounded the bushes. All the pigeons that had just been flying at full speed now barely moved forward. Their wings fluttered so slowly that she could run a marathon and still be back before they completed a single flap. She could climb the tree and push away the front pigeons before their eyes blinked even once.

What she couldn’t do, however, was freeze time forever.

“Pigeons and other creatures! Stop this battle now! You will lose, many will be wounded. It’s pointless.”

“What are you doing?” the ape general asked, as he swung through the trees behind her. “You really think they’ll listen? Attack them!”

He neared her red bubble. He wasn’t slowed down—yet.

“Don’t come closer! Or I’ll—”

He grabbed a vine a few meters away and immediately froze. He wanted to shout something, but his mouth opened agonizingly slowly. Why does no one listen to me? Must be because I’m small.

The ape was right though: the chance of a pigeon retreat was slim. She had little time left. The breath she’d just blown had almost pierced the edge of her time bubble.

She looked behind; the ape charged at her with his whole army. She looked ahead; more pigeons than she could stop.

Still she tried. It was always up to her alone to try.

She jumped on the first pigeon, who immediately—very slowly—fell. She landed on the second pigeon, who also changed direction. She kept jumping from pigeon to pigeon, as if they were stones in a river and she didn’t want to wet her feet. Bird after bird tumbled to the ground.

She looked back. Just a wisp of frozen breath left.

I’m not even halfway done. Why do pigeons always come in such great numbers? She shook her head and her eyes fell shut. The red light illuminating the woods disappeared.

As she fell, time resumed and the remaining pigeons flew on tempestuously, some instantly shot by arrows.

She readied herself for a rough landing, but something or someone grabbed her. Her eyes shot open, but all she saw was a gray-white striped back of the head. The beast lifted her onto his back, leapt from branch to branch, then landed on safer grounds further away.

The battle raged on in the distance. Shields clapped against shields, swords split everything in two, and the rapid pigeons pushed leaves into whirlwinds across the heath.

“Let me go! I have to go back! Because of my time bubble the army didn’t see the enemy coming. It’s my fault. I have to make it right. I shouldn’t have intervened, that’s rule one of—”

“You don’t have to do anything.” Her captor gently put her on the ground and scouted the area for danger. “We’re safe here, for now.”

She saw who it was.