HEADS & TAILS
It was a nice, fresh, sunny morning. The grass glistened with the dew – it was a late spring in the Southern Ergoth.
Kali the peasant slowly, almost lazily, harnessed his old horse, occasionally yawning and scratching his neck.
He let out a faint curse and hit the horse with a whip to make it move. Stacked neatly near him were a dozen chickens and a small, fat pig. Kali was going for the market.
In about an hour he stopped at the fork in the road.
Which way to choose? The road to the left, eastern direction, goes to the market place of Sir Athanas Uth Laktar. The road to the right, western direction, leads to the market place of Sir Albert Le Desired... And the distance is kinda equal.
Kali thoughtfully scratched the nape of his neck and turned eastwards. Sir Athanas brewed beer better than did Sir Albert.
...Although Kali scarcely had any idea about that, it was Year 442 B.C. It was still four hundreds forty two years till the Cataclysm. It was still almost seven hundred years to the Wars of the Lance. It was still almost seven hundred-and-a-half years before the Mage of Red Robes, Helxen Kitame-Lorif, was born.
Well, and the reason Helxen was now standing here, at the fork, at the Year 442 B.C., was pretty trivial. She was a mage with the desire for knowledge. She also was a mage with a rare talent, probably never seen before and probably never-to-be-seen again. She was a born Time-Traveller.
Fistandantilus, the Mage of Black Robes, at present was little more than a lad – physically. Mentally, he had lived many lives already, letting the river of time slowly drag him with its steady current.
He was able to travel in time, as well as Raistlin Majere was – or would be, if we are speaking at this time point, - and Par-Salian, and Ladonna and a few other great wizards.
Helxen was not great. She was a human, with a little bit of elven blood flowing in her veins – probably the heritage of her great-great-grandma, who was pretty handsome and had the doubtful happiness to fall in love with a young Silvanesti elf. And, as she was a woman, the curiosity was the main thing which flowed in her veins, accompanied by the elven blood.
Helxen was able to swim, figuratively speaking, through the waters of the river of time, to glide back in the current of time, spending ten times as little magical energy, than, say, Raistlin would have spent.
Helxen was a mage, and her hobby was the historical researches. Nothing would have pleased her more than to get known to the ethnical roots of the word "Palanthas", for example. She loved to surf in the time and to watch, rarely if ever interferring. Not that she could have done something really dangerous – she hadn't had enough magical strength, after all... and the river of time is pretty viscous, not allowing a small pebble to change the whole current... And it was always so interesting to watch stuff which you read about in ancient books, happen before your eyes.
At the present moment... err... at the future moment... err... anyway, when she was... would be... will be... err... OK, when she [was/will be] at home, her current researching [was/will be] the village markets of early Krynn. She intently studied the materials the gnomes had collected; the materials Astinus had written down; and the materials in various other libraries. Had Astinus spent a little more time scribbling down a few extra paragraphs of the social village market system of early Krynn, our story would have gone an other way.
But Astinus did not succeed to feed the knowledge hunger of the young magician. Helxen felt a terrible urge to watch it herself. She got the needed permission – it was not the first time she travelled in time, - and, after all, she had never done anything harmful and was always very helpful (regarding historical aspects of help) and anyway she wasn't going to try to prevent the Cataclysm! So, Par-Salian thought, why the young lady couldn't travel back in time and watch the ancient village market.
Naive Par-Salian...
And now, at Year 442, Helxen appeared at the point and saw Kali going to the market. And Kali turned westwards instead of eastwards, because beer is beer, but a spare coin will never be spare and Helxen, for some reason, wanted to check Sir Albert's market. And paid Kali in clinking coins, of course.
And had Kali gone eastwards, his horse would have broken its leg. And Kali didn't drown himself in three bottles of dwarven spirits, as he would have, had he gone eastwards. And, finally, he returned home untouched and unharmed, and he didn't get himself drowned in the ditch, as he would have got, had he gone eastwards...
But he stayed to live because Helxen was interested in the village markets of Sir Albert Le Desired, Solamnic Knight. And Kali managed to produce two sons before Paladine summoned him, obviously unable to observe the bottles of dwarven spirits being constantly drank.
And Kali's two sons did a great job in increasing the population of Southern Ergoth in particular, and Krynn in general. And Kali's grandsons and grand-daughters hadn't in the least disgraced the fair name of their ancestor, adding their bits to the population.
And it finally came to the Dark Ages, when an enormous meteorite had hit the ancient city of Istar and caused the good name of the gods and the clerics of said gods vanish out of Krynn for a fairly long period of time. And one of Kali's descendants had killed a man who should have stayed alive, for he played a key role in the future. The river of time suddenly changed its steady course...
To cut it short, it became completely different!
Helxen spent her day at the market of Sir Albert and returned home and saw it being swapped with something absolutely not Krynnish.
Not a surprise that she tried to get it all back. How could it have changed? Oh, it was her great-great-grandma's fault! She must have not only fallen in love with a young Silvanesti, but also with a kender, or a gnome. Or with them both at the same time. A very lightheaded woman, was Helxen's great-great-grandma!
Helxen, mentally cursing at her great-great-grandma, did her own magical research through the time and found the core of the problem. She was not alone. There were quite a few other wizards who had also taken their own researches. After all, the great mages are too great to be wiped out of the History by a simple change of time course. As a result, when Helxen secondly reappeared at the fork of fate, there was a strange alliance of Magi of all colors standing there. And they all made Kali turn eastwards.
And the History again changed the course, and the previous course disappeared.
But the other travellers-in-time – yes, in the new History, when Kali survived, the time travelling was also invented – so, having returned back home, they had found a sad surprise – their home was swapped with something absolutely Krynnish and therefore weird for them.
And that's why when Helxen thirdly reappeared at the fork in the road, she found not only a strange alliance of the Magi of all colors, but also the enemy team.
And when Kali got to the fork, one team ordered him to turn eastwards.
The other team merely demanded him to turn westwards.
Their demands and orders were supported by various little neat tricks magi are so fond of – an illusory dragon, some burning fireballs and what-not...
Kali made round eyes and sworn to Paladine he would never drink dwarven spirits again, but that changed nothing.
It was more than a strange situation. When Raistlin had... would have... will have... anyway! when he had his loop-in-time with Fistandantilus, it was far more clear situation than the one here. There were two courses, which were, so to speak, two main lines of the History. And the two teams were equally matched.
Urgently a conclave was created, and the two teams began discussing loudly on various topics, the main topic being "oh-what-to-do-now?"
They made one clear conclusion at last. Both lines had equal rights to continue flowing. Yet the lines can't keep flowing; one must disappear!
An honest game was offered as the method of judgement. Indeed, the team which will show the most number of tricky magic wielding skills, would be the winner; this would only do good to the world. The strongest must survive.
It was a wise decision.
The teams called themselves "Easterns" and "Westerns" respectively and the game began.
What should I say here? Even if I was Astinus, my quill would still be unable to describe all the tiny details of the game, if it was a game and not a battle.
The magicians were challenging each other. Catch-with-the-fireball game was won by the Easterns and Control-the-dragon by the Westerns. Bath-in-the-acid-and-survive – Easterns won ten to nothing, but they completely lost to Steal-from-a-kender game. It didn't matter, though. The overall score was zero.
The tension grew. You could almost hear it, the spidery words of magic being chanted: "Ast kirannan kair Gardurm..."
At this critical moment, Kali looked at the sun and rubbed his head in horror. He was being late for the market! Kali said in a resolute tone, trying his best not to let his voice shake:
'Okay you all! It was very... uhm... pleasant... yeah, uhm, pleasant, really... to meet you all, guys. I'm being late for the market and that's gonna stop it. Look, here's a coin. I flip it. If I get heads, I go east. I get tails, I go west. Sounds OK?'
The team leaders exchanged glances. 'OK!' 'But no bluffing! You hear?'
'Thou' fear not,' Kali answered. 'I am no silly kender.'
The coin flipped high into the air and fell on its back.
'Heads!' Kali exclaimed loudly. He hit his horse with a whip and shouted: "Move!"
He turned eastwards.
And without any warning the Westerns dissolved in the warm air as though they had never been here. The final History course was all set now.
The Easterns didn't stay for much longer, too. They chanted the required spells and smoothly glided back to the future.
Kali was merrily moving down the road, absolutely unaware that in half an hour his horse would break its leg, in two hours he would drink three bottles of dwarven spirits and in six hours he would sink in a ditch.
He was unaware of his fate which was all set.
Right now, he was singing some happy tune rather unmelodiously: "If you are happy and you know it, eat an elf..."
"It's a good thing I got the lucky coin with me today. What if I had tails? I'd have turned west and would have had to drink Albert's beer, and his beer, Paladine knows, is really bitter, yuck."
He flipped the coin again in the air and caught it deftly. It lay in his palm, heads up. Kali chuckled and gently turned it upside down. There was the heads as well.
'My lucky coin!' he snickered.