Tales of Past Glories. Very Past.

Who am I?

Where to begin...really it's been awhile, and I find myself having trouble keeping my thoughts together. It's really, kind of like diablerie, but without the advanced generation.

I suppose some catching up is in order. Going back in time twice doesn't happen every day, after all. I mean I'm me, but I'm also a member of the Syndicate circa 1933 (Commodore 64 days.. Man I coulda been something.) and a Turkish trick rider in the current year of 1094.

Things seem different, frankly. Like...the group isn't so much a group. The ones I remember as Brian-Eadwulf and Brenda-Godiva...frankly scare me. Like there's a whole level of creepy where they live, and I'm not sure we can accomplish goals with them. Cassandra is...somehow my sister, Songul, and I'm oddly protective. Call it the older brother complex. Having been an older brother at least once, and even some dim memories of being mad because her husband...took a concubine without permission? Something. Either way, I was rather put out when Rambert tried to put moves on her and I surprised all of us by finding my sword in my hand and having it pointed rather pointedly as his manly bits.

Anyway. My name, or at least the name I have now, is Cengiz. Pretty common where I was born in...Denver, 990 years in the future. Okay, maybe not. But in this day and age, Cengiz is somewhat common because Ghengis Khan is still 100 years from becoming the shit-wrecking Mongol on the steppes. This is difficult, remembering historical touchstones that haven't happened yet. Shit, we're still a year and a half from the first crusade. Which makes my advanced science a rather difficult thing, even my 1933 hyperscience is very difficult to perform due to the vagaries of the collective will making such things an impossibility, despite them being Science.

Curiously, I've been in the pageant as a rider for 40 years; something about having been sold to them to erase a debt. Thanks for nothing (again) Pop. My sister reads fortunes, I shoot arrows and do backflips and such from the back of my horse Malik-Adham (The Black King). When I'm not doing that, I'm helping with the animals in the pageant, since I can talk to them. Or at least I can make them understand me. It's not exactly genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, but it pays the bills.

The pageant is taking on a few new people when we leave, like always. Eadwulf, his wife, and Godiva and her, well, boytoy, I guess. I mean, really it's probably the only chance they'll ever have in their lives to travel, and since they're going to live for awhile, it's pretty much a good idea. Plus, I mean how exactly are you going to change the world by living in a peasant village of 150? But to the interesting stuff. Apparently Goodwife Eadwulf (Sunnigfu) was defiled as a young lady, and other ladies of her age kept it hidden because the defiling one was the local priest, who promised good husbands in exchange for their silence on the matter. Sunnigfu didn't think that was exactly right, so she came to the Pageant for an object to exact revenge. Annnnd she did. Boy howdy did she. Somehow she turned into a wolf as big as my horse, and then made an example of the ladies by kinnnnda sorta shredding them from the waist down. Really gory, and there were a few times during the adventure when my Toreadors' soul was enthralled by the spectacle. If revenge could be an art, what an artisan she would be. That said, I think I'm going to avoid her for a month or so, given that I shot 4 arrows at her and hit twice. The whole thing was a weirdness, since Godiva did something she never does and saved peoples' lives. I approve, but when an act of kindness is something out of place, is this someone you can really trust?

But enough of that for now, I suppose. I'll expand on this more as we travel to our next destination, and I find myself looking for answers to some of the simplest philosophical questions; who am I, what next. And are we in that old Ben Bova novel Orion, going back in time to prevent future horrors? Too many questions and not enough Guinness. Note to self, invent Guinness.