A heated wind blew dust before dark-robed men and their score of beasts as they plodded along a faint trail scratched in the hard-packed dirt of the unforgiving menze. Two suns burned overhead, the glowering dull red of the greater and further vastly outshone by the blistering blue glare of the lesser but nearer. The level plain stretched away in shades of burnt-sienna and copper, its monotony broken only by occasional blow-sand drifts of coarse grit, dry flame tree thickets and a lone staad tree slowly rising over the hazy horizon ahead. Sinking below the horizon far behind the caravan, snow glistened on the heights of distant peaks labeled Al Penni on maps, but called Kurkurtin, the Mountains of Life, to these who needed no map to live there.
      The men were swarthy, thickset and squint-eyed, watchful by nature, deliberate and economical of movement by long habit. Their dusky women were no less alert, sturdy without being unshapely, and their equals in their allotted time on foot or riding atop the high sloping carapace back of a kmeil. All were veiled and robed against the dust and heat. Of children there were was no sign. A trading caravan to the city market places of the mahiru, the tall pale ones, was business. It was not profitable to lose cargo space better employed for spices and salt, incense, perfumes, cosmetics, jewellery and ornaments of bone, amber and orichalcum, pottery, rugs . . . .
      As they approached it throughout the morning’s travel, the staad tree grew to impossibly tall, then truly monstrous proportions. To a visitor from Earth it may have resembled a gigantic broccoli, fully a fifth of a kilometre high, the length of one staad, a measure of distance of the pale city rulers, and one of the very few adoptions by the Schinar. To Bulta, the hazannu kashkal or caravan leader, who had never heard of broccoli, kilometres or Earth, the tree was a geshtin, a tree-of-life, one of many such widely spaced on the vast flat plateau plains traversed by the Schinar for more generations than he knew. Each tree was sacred to an ancient Schinar deity – this one to Asushu-namir, called so because of its handsome symmetry and form.
      Nevertheless, at midday, Bulta warily eyed the oasis that spread out around the enormous base of the writhing and convoluted trunk before he called a halt. No predators being noted, a votive offering of water was poured onto the thirsty dirt to appease and gratify Asushu-namir, and shade tents were set up in the shadow of the bulging top of his tree. The huge kmeil-beasts were hobbled together on the side away from the staad tree, the better for their safety. Besides the oasis, the tree itself hosted a complete ecosystem of harmless prey species, and some predators of potentially worrisome reputation.
      The kmeil were native to the place, evolved to conserve vital energies, but their masters were not and retired under the tents to break their half-day fast with modest drink and social noises. Traveling in the blistering kiln-heat of the day wasted stamina, even for the Schinar.
      The shanga priest, the asu caravan physician, a tam karu King’s trader and his zazakku bookkeeper of accounts, and several other major peddlers all gathered around Bulta in the centre of the shade tent area and settled on small woven mats. Eventually the mushkinu free men and the women squatted in a rough circle around them. Bulta remained standing until the murmured exchanges faded into silence.
      “We will wait upon the rising of great ringed Orba, until the passing of the heat of Blue Man and Red Man. Let us thank fair Asushu-namir for his gift of shade, and may he accept our offering of precious water and fetter his tree dwellers for our stay.”
      Stubby, sinister crossbows appeared in the hands of three of the younger men who posted themselves just within the shade of the tent, but with easy surveillance of the hobbled kmeil herd.
      Bulta lowered himself unto a mat and conversations resumed. A milky soup was poured into large bowls, shallow ovals with drinking notches on one end. Blended with mashed and sprinkled ingredients, the viscous result was passed around until the bowls returned empty to their preparers.
      “The gods are smiling on our journey, Bulta,” remarked the tam karu. His full, cleanly shaven face crinkled in congenial self-assurance.
      “Would that their smiles continue,” replied the barrel-chested caravan leader. “We are not yet two days walk from the Kurkurtin. Our traverse of the flatlands to the merchant city of Dchenau has only begun.”
      The asu physician also smiled, turning his gaunt, thinly bearded face to the hazannu.
      “You have lead many caravans across the great plateau plaana, my friend,” he said. “Many more caravans than those on which I have mended the injured or bled the sick. I see no inauspicious event marring our path this time.” The proud King’s trader was not one of the physician’s favourite traveling companions.
      “But is there not now the chance of meeting up with The Wanderer to liven our solitary trek?” The shanga priest, who seldom smiled at anyone, offered this possibility with a measure of proprietary pride. His full beard provided full contrast to his shaved head, shining and unshrouded under the shade tent.
      “The Wanderer and the Child that leads him! Has anyone here seen more of them than a picture in the teller’s mind? It would be a rare event indeed,” remarked the portly tam karu. The laconic zazakku accountant nodded agreement but did not comment. Bulta could not remember the sound of the man’s voice.
      “All things are possible,” one of the onlooking traders contributed sagely, “given enough time.”
      A kmeil drover approached the central group, hesitant until Bulta’s eye fell on him. The man touched his right hand to his forehead in respect before speaking.
      “A skaabr, hazannu. Around the great tree, on the other side.”
      The attention of those within earshot was riveted on the driver.
      “Bel shedu !” blurted Bulta. “Lord of the Shape-shifting Demons!” He started toward the kmeil herd, shouting. “Ashur! Kish-nun! Arad! Beyond the great tree! Skaabr!”
      The three crossbow bearers, plus several others with tent poles or additional crossbows in their hands followed Bulta and the drover into spiky peripheral undergrowth, attempting a shorter route around the staad tree without actually going through the oasis.
      Minutes later Bulta and the rest halted, waiting to glimpse the great muzzle emerging around the immense tree trunk, bristling with mandibles on a towering, tapering neck, far over their heads.
      It did not happen.
      “Where . . . ?”
      “I am sorry, hazannu,” the drover explained, catching them up. “It is the remains of a skaabr. See its great shell, there . . .” He pointed to a large, rounded mound arching out of the dusty ground some distance from the oasis.
      Bulta’s relief was evident on his face. He erupted in full, deep laughter.
      “You had us running there, Shum! Indeed, a magnificent beast, if a bit dead ! A clever joke on us all, and well done, too!” He slapped the smaller man on the back, nearly toppling him. Shum smiled sheepishly under the good-natured if undeserved flattery of his grinning fellows.
      A bleaching carapace the size of their shade tent was flanked on opposite ends by smaller half-shells strung out to mark the defunct creature’s long neck and tail. Along its length many curving rib bones littered the ground, very long and very thin for a creature of a size to challenge the largest extinct sauropods of Earth. But the likes of this creature was neither a sauropod nor extinct.
      However, it was very dead, a husk of its former dimensions. Others of the caravan company approached from around the staad tree. None came through the oasis.
      Bulta rubbed the heel of his hand over the stubble of his jaw. “An old beast, by the look of it. What say you, my friend?”
      The asu physician, seasoned by many treks across the menze, showed no surprise at the find. “Time puts an end to man and beast alike,” he said quietly. “Even this great grandfather of the flatland.”
      They walked to the dried shell of the creature’s skull, a long, tapering affair twice a sleeping man’s length. Metre-wide orbits gaped where its two oval compound eyes used to be, smaller fist-sized openings marking its simple eyes half way along its snout to its quadriform grinding mandibles. Only the teeth themselves remained, still set in four sturdy jaw shapes. The matching prehensile lips were missing, devoured by predators along with the rest of the giant creature’s soft parts.
      “Have you never wondered at the difference between our kind and the likes of these, Bulta?” the asu asked. “The beasts of this world have much in common, including our beasts of burden, the kmeil and the eikooz. But we are created to a much different plan.”
      Bulta considered the tall, lean doctor. A wry smile twisted his weather-beaten features.
      “Do you not fear the vengeance of the gods to speak such things? Or the retribution of the shanga who teaches that we are the chosen creatures of those gods?”
      “I fear death and the King’s tax man,” the other laughed. “Surely that is enough for one man.”
      “Well said,” the caravan leader agreed, spying the King’s trader, accountant and the shanga priest approaching. “But others may suspect a talPadraa in you, a fanatic of the pale ones who believes strange tales of an ancient Homeworld in the sky.”
      Their briefest of adventures outside sanctioned dogma was interrupted by Shum, still formal, but less hesitant than excited this time.
      “Hazannu, it is agreed. We all concede to your right as hazannu kashkal to apportion the claws of the great skaabr. Your fairness is well known.”
      “Even raw, uncarved ivory brings a high price in the mahiru market places,” said the tam karu, his eyes making a liar of the sincerity of his tongue.
      “Yes, a pity we are not homeward bound – ”
      “– but we are not,” Bulta stated firmly, cutting off the shanga priest in mid-comment. “Those to whom I apportion shall sell in Dchenau, or stow for return to the Kurkurtin to carve for greater sale later, as they wish.”
      “Of course, hazannu. In any case, have not the gods smiled upon us this day?” Expressionless in the face of the caravan leader’s authority in this matter, the priest turned to watch the separation of claws from their sockets in the thick foot bones.
      Eventually two dozen thick skaabr claws, three from each foot, stood on the ground in a rough line. The largest from the front feet arced up in a shallow crescent, two-thirds the height of a man and easily as heavy. Bulta’s job was not a difficult one, since each man had, in effect, already made his claim merely by freeing an ivory talon appropriate to his age and accepted station, or to the station of his sponsor in the case of the tam karu, the shanga priest and the asu. In addition, and as tradition dictated, the biggest and finest specimen lay to one side, reserved for the hazannu.
      Also reserved for the hazannu was the formal demands of the occasion, despite the easy division of spoils. Bulta, long on leadership and desert smarts, but short on ceremony, silently built a brief speech in his mind, while his hazannu eyes scanned the menze by long habit, like the high-flying keel.
      “Our ancient gods have honoured us with the gift of the great grandfather of the flatland,” Bulta began, taking his cue from the words of the shanga. “And welcoming Asushu-namir presents us with the great skaabr beast cleaned by the creatures of his great geshtin tree which even now shades us from the radiance of mighty Blue Man . . . .”
      Bulta caught movement beyond the young men and the great claws arrayed before him, the merest flicker of white far out on the flatland, but short of the bare horizon shimmering in the heat haze. Except in the snow time of dark nights, during the conjunction of Blue Man, Red Man, and great ringed Orba, white is never seen on the burning menze.
      “Let us give an extra votive offering of our precious water in gratitude to the gods who have been so charitable to their unworthy mortal followers.” Bulta nodded to the shanga who uncapped a bronze water vessel hurriedly brought by a runner. The hazannu returned his glance out onto the flatland. His jaw dropped in surprise. The white speck resolved into a small bundle carried aloft on a shoulder of a tall man clothed in a dun robe striding forward on foot out of the dusty heat of the distance.
      Even as the hazannu watched, the shoulder bundle became a child swaddled in glistening white, held there by the man’s right hand. His left held a long walking stick. A long beard swayed as he strode ahead. It seemed to Bulta that the two approached much faster than mere walking could account for, even allowing for the wide strides of the tall man.
      “Who could it be, walking alone in the desert flatlands in the heat of the day?” The asu physician stood beside Bulta, shading his eyes with his hands. All eyes were now on the approaching figure, even the shanga who still held the water urn upright.
      “He is headed for our shade tent.”
      All moved together around the oasis toward the other side of the staad tree.
      Not to be left behind, the shanga tipped the urn to quickly wet the dusty ground, recapped it and hurried after the rest. The undistributed skaabr claws remained where they were, abandoned for the moment.
      Bulta was not among the first back to the shade tent, and had to push his way through his own people who were too awe-struck to part for him as they normally would. Just outside the shade of their tent stood the tall man, not so much waiting as merely immobile, staring to them rather than at them, his eyes dull and lifeless. His greying hair and beard hung beyond his shoulders, tangled and matted, and his robe was worn and careless. He held his stick casually – it was obviously not needed for support. But it was not he who drew their attention.
      A child’s step ahead of his right foot stood a small girl, a toddler in apparent size and age, wrapped in immaculate white. She regarded them in silence, raising a tiny hand to brush aside a strand of fine white-blonde baby hair. She gave the distinct impression of waiting.
      Bulta abruptly came to his senses, realizing that the two strangers were merely observing polite custom, awaiting recognition of their presence outside the tent and an invitation inside from the hazannu.
      “Our shade and our water are your shade and water, oh strangers, as our humble welcome is your invitation.” Bulta bowed, drawing his right hand downwards from his forehead.
      Together the two stepped into the shade of the tent, the bearded man in two strides, the tiny child in a gliding motion, dreamlike, as if not quite touching the ground. Clean mats were provided, and the child settled down on one, but her consort remained standing, towering head and shoulders over everyone, his unfocussed eyes directed into some far distance.
      The shanga finally pushed through the onlookers to stand before the strange duo, his bald head shiny with sweat. The child regarded the panting priest with some interest.
      “Ludlul bel nemeqi,” intoned the shanga, a thoroughly servile look on his lined face. “I will praise the Lord of Wisdom. And may Tiamat, our Maiden of Life, guide our steps as she guides my Lord’s. Amein.”
      “You are the shangamahhu, the supreme head priest of this azolae?” the tiny girl asked clearly in a soft child’s voice, using the mahinu word for caravan. Bulta thought he sensed sarcasm, but was uncertain, trying to adjust to such words from a child.
      “I am only a ramku, my Lady, a lowly foot-washer in your presence, and ever at your service.”
      “And I am the yamin of my adda, the Wanderer, ever at his right hand at the rising of the twin suns of Angelus, our world. As he is of me.” Her chubby right arm raised to the tall man who remained silently blank.
      Water was brought, and special sweet cakes intended to please the wives of market place officials in Dchenau. Only the little one ate, and with quiet deliberation, her attention focused on the cake in her hand, as her hosts focused on her. But when she had finished, her fingers and face were clean as before, and her attention was on those of the caravan seated across from her in a wide crescent.
      “Harshi-nana,” the child called softly. A woman of indeterminate age rose hesitantly in the background of the shade tent.
      “Y-yes, my Lady.”
      “Your cakes are delicious. Your trade at Dchenau will be increased because of them.”
      Sounds of indrawn breath went around under the tent. Harshi-nana could only nod her thanks in speechless awe, while others uttered in wonder, “How did she know who it was that baked . . . ?”
      “Bulta,” the child continued, looking directly at the hazannu. “The prosperity of your azolae has begun with the claws of the grandfather of the desert, and will continue into your return. Thank you for your hospitality this day.”
      “You are more than welcome, my Lady. May we serve you in some other way as well?”
      “No, Bulta, but thank you for asking. We have the time and space of nations. And more.” She paused, then leaned forward slightly so that golden-white strands fell across her baby face. “But others do not, and will need our help.”
      “Our help, my Lady?”
      “Yes, when their time comes for it.”
      “Who – ”
      “You do not know them. Strangers from farther than you can imagine.” She smiled a cherub smile. “Even stranger than we two.”
      “How will I . . . ?”
      “Do you know of the Menze Skarpea far south of Room Nua?”
      “Not well, but the menze is everywhere the same . . . .”
      “True, but your help will be needed even farther south than that.”
      “Farther south . . . in the kharsaanu saquutu, the hyperjungle far below the cliffs at the end of the world?” The caravan leader stared at the small child who held his eye without blinking. He grasped at her words so softly spoken, so alien to a child so young.
      “Where the Great Schege Austre, the great southern desert, meets the jungle, within sight of the great cliffs of our plateau, Plaana Burgandei.” She leaned back, considering him intently.
      “Yes. I see a map in my mind, clearly,” he said slowly, his eyes closed. “And I see the strangers. Two women and a man. And two others much, much stranger – oh, it is gone from my mind!”
      Bulta started as from a deep sleep. The child was standing, then was swept up by a huge hand to be held lightly on the tall man’s shoulder. From her perch, towering over them, she spoke again, still quietly, softly, in the voice of a child, but to each listener, clearly.
      “Your welcome will be remembered far beyond your graves. Do not be concerned about us. Distance is nothing, and we have made the winds and the sky our friends. Farewell, for now.”
      Then they were gone from them, out again into the heat of the flatlands, the tall one striding away until, to Bulta’s keen eyes, they seemed to abruptly wink out of existence in the distant heat haze.
      The hazannu did not so much ignore the questions and exclamations of his caravan people as become absorbed in his own thoughts, even beyond the sudden appearance of the Wanderer and the Child. He sought to revive the clarity of the map and the scene revealed to him only moments before, and could not. Even much later, after their excitement had waned and he was again before the abandoned skaabr claws, clear memory failed him. Who were they, or would they be, and how did he, Bulta the hazannu kashkal, figure in their needs?
      He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and returned to the apportioning of the ivory claws rearing up in an ominous row out of the ground, like monstrous fangs awaiting only a word to spring to life like avenging spectral soldiers of legend.