Gate: Five of Swords

I stepped through the vision gate and was surrounded by thick black smoke that obscured my sight. Above the bilious clouds, the sky glowed blood red and, with its distant loveliness, welcomed me back to the world of perpetual war. I pushed through the smoke as if parting ephemeral cobwebs, trying to keep my eyes on the sky as I did so in an effort to keep my spirits high.

After much effort and movement through the shadows, the black smoke was cleared by a cool breeze and I found myself standing on a field divided into squares like a chessboard. Dark figures wreathed in shadows that concealed their form were near. As I approached these spirits, they switched back and forth between the aspects of actual people and man-sized chess pieces causing a visible distortion to my sight like waves of energy rising above super-heated sand dunes.

As I went closer to one of the beings who was shaped like a pawn, he changed into a soldier from the First World War. The soldier didn’t notice my presence but gazed anxiously into the distance, muttering about “the enemy getting closer.” Then, cupping his hands to his mouth, he lit a cigarette, the match strike bringing a momentary light to the shadow beneath his metal helmet.

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I crouched down next to the soldier in an effort to see what the man saw but all I could perceive was the chess board extending in all directions and further pieces upon the squares. As I did so, the spirit suddenly noticed me.

“What are you doing!” he exclaimed. “Where’s your helmet, man! Get down!” He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me even lower next to him upon the board. “For God’s sake, you have a death wish, coming out here like that,” he said and took another hit of his cigarette.

“I’m sorry, friend,” I said, cowering as low to the ground as I could. “I’ll try to do better in the future. Who’s our enemy again?”

The soldier turned his attention from his reality to squint his eyes at me in the darkness. “Have you taken a head wound?” he said. “If that’s the case, you need to fall back and talk to a medic. You’re only a danger to yourself and everybody else if you stay out here.”

“I’m not wounded,” I said, my heart beginning to race in my chest because of a threat I could feel but not see. “I haven’t been sleeping well, you see, and it messes with my head. Sometimes I forget why I’m here.”

The soldier snorted in solidarity. “Don’t we all,” he said, drawing another long pull on his cigarette. “If the leaders of the world were out here in the trenches with us, this war would have been over yesterday. As it is, we best keep our heads down and endure until our replacements arrive.”

“This is a fine plan,” I said, beginning to rise from the squat I had taken next to the soldier. “But it’s not going to work for me, my friend. I’m from another world and I came here to learn the true nature of this realm. I won’t learn anything cowering in fear.”

The soldier stifled a guffaw at my declaration but then sobered when he saw I was serious. “You’ve gone mad,” he said in a low voice. “This hell has broken your mind. Don’t worry about it, the front has ruined finer men than you. Sit quietly with me and I will find help for you when our guard duty is done.”