nanowrimo_lj | Time Travel without Time Travel

Okay, a bit of a weird question here.
My second villian has just revealed himself to me as an older version of the main character who sends orders to his "crony" in the past (time the novel takes place in). But... how exactly does this work? In a fantasy novel with selective modern technology, no less...?
My first idea is to make the race that his crony is from have limited time-travelling ability. He's the only one left of this race, so it wouldn't be too cheap... except for the fact that they already have the ability to create illusions and raise the dead.
An addendum to that idea - maybe his race doesn't have it, but he specificaly was born with that ability (there's another character in the story who was born with the ability to see the future, so...). Still, is this to many powers for one being? What can I do to balance it out? He's physically frail and weak (especially in his true form), but I don't think that's enough.