Establishing Where and When

After a couple of hours, they reached a small fishing village, and saw an elderly fisherman tending his nets. The man's jaw dopped open in astonishment when he saw them. In this out of the way place, any visitors would be rare, never mind two athletic yet highly attractive young women, one wearing armour and the other wearing nothing at all apart from chains attached to her wrists.

The man was even more astonished when it turned out that the women not only did not know where they were but were ignorant of what year it was. "This village is Fleetsholm," he said. Not surprisingly, the name meant nothing to the women. "But what land is this?" Anina asked. "Why, Elmeria, of course," the man said. The women looked at each other in surprise and dismay. They were some eight hundred miles away from Aquilaria. The only good thing was that it would be an overland journey; at least there would be no ocean to cross. "And the year?" Astra asked. "The fifth year of the reign of King Geoffrey," the man replied.

Astra gasped. She knew that as far as she was concerned Geoffrey had been in the twentyfirst year of his reign. She must have travelled back in time sixteen years, to the year prior to the great battle. Back in Aquilaria, there was a nine year old Astra. What would happen if she travelled home and met her? She had no memory from when she was nine of such a meeting, though. And what of Anina? If this was a year before the battle, it explained why she was alive, but it didn't explain how she had come to Elmeria with no knowledge of how she got here. It seemed unlikely that her being in just the right place for Astra to find her had been a coincidence, so presumably whatever magician had brought Astra here had arranged to transport Anina too, but in her case only in space and not in time. But what was the motive behind their transportation?

And wouldn't Anina being transported away mean that Aquilarian history would now unfold differently from how she, Astra, remembered it? Indeed, the nine year-old Astra would presumably now have a memory of the mysterious disappearance of her weapons' instructor that she, the adult Astra, didn't have. Astra's brain was starting to hurt.

Now they knew where and when they were, they had to decide what to do. The obvious plan would be to try to travel back to Aquilaria. That would be difficult, though. They had no money or supplies. Their only assets (discounting Astra's chains) were Anina's clothing, topped by a chain mail jerkin, and sword.

1. They decided to head for Aquilaria.
2. They decided on an alternative plan.

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