Two- the centaur

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"Ferocactus wislizeni or shamji'itche as it is known to the Fae tribesmen of this area is a compass, a favorable omen and a source of emergency sustenance. Could potentially even be a dowsing rod if we're lucky as they do tend to congregate in areas of standing water." My father dug into the earth with his fingertips, feeling the sand for moisture. When he found none, he dug deeper. "Notice how they all tip in the same direction? Ferocactus always grows towards the south. And see here, the little yellow fruits atop that one? These are edible but a word of caution-- When eaten on an empty stomach they can cause nausea and other digestive unpleasantness that could only dehydrate you further."

A basking chuckwalla unclenched its jaw in our general direction before hot-footing it across the sand. The creature took one brief, cowardly skid into a stone crevice and inflated its pink body like a sheep’s bladder. “Papa! Papa, did you see that?” I grabbed the side of my father’s trousers and tugged.



“See what?”

“The lizard thing!” I hopped as ferociously as a fifty pound girl up to her heels in sand could ever hope to hop, pointing with one hand and tapping my father’s back with the other.

“Have you been listening to me at all, little jengu?” I stood on the tips of my toes, desperate to see as much of the chuckwalla as I could from the beneath the safety of my father’s shadow.

“Yes but you should have seen what it did! First it ran like this—“ Here, I thrashed my arms and legs to mimic the chuckwalla’s gait. “And then it jumped in the rocks! And then it blew up like this!” I extended my arms on either side as though my belly were three times its width and waddled, my cheeks swollen with air. Papa only grinned and shook his head as I teetered through the sand. Turning back to the cacti, he began digging once more. I watched the flurry of his hands with interest until they stopped dead.

“Jira!” I pelted across the sand towards my father. He was pressing his fingertips deep into the trench and water was rushing in from below. “Go fetch Goodwife Ottomas. Tell her that we need cloth and a large bowl to catch the silt. Hurry, now!”



And off I went. My arms stretched high above my head, I was a skimming snake. I would get back to the camp in ten seconds’ time, faster than the fastest snake. As I ran, I composed a song but I don’t remember it now. It was something to do with water, sun and big bowls.



What a funny thing it is to be a child with your whole world contained in a silly song or a frenzied dance. At the summit of a rather imposing dune, I planted my soft-soled mojaris toe-first into the sand thinking that it would make me faster, if a little awkward. Not only was I wrong but my suede soles slid on a concealed rock, causing me to lose my footing. I tumbled sideways down the dune, some ten feet or so.



I remember this moment moving slowly as things tend to do when the blood is quickened. My left hand hit the ground first, followed by the corresponding elbow and shoulder. I was not in much pain or discomfort but that may have been because I was startled. Or maybe it was as my Papa used to say and children truly do bounce. Whatever the case, I soon found myself at the bottom of the dune much quicker than I had originally anticipated and on all fours.

There was an instant of disorientation. In the distance, I could hear a strange clinking sound that I chose to ignore. The ground had stopped moving and my limbs were submerged. I shook my head vigorously to get rid of the accumulated sand. I felt like a snowball. No, I thought. A sandball! This new word was hilarious to my nine-year-old mind and I giggled at my own cleverness. But I was not alone in my amusement.



A meerkat sentry was observing me from about a foot away. It barked in a way that was probably inquisitive or even aggressive but to me at the time, it sounded like laughter. I froze, not wanting to frighten it off. During our brief staring match, an entire group of them began to emerge one by one.



I tried to will them closer to me. No sudden movements. Then in the distance, I noticed a brown dot on the horizon lumbering towards us. Slowly, suspiciously, I pushed myself to my feet.

As the clinking grew louder, I knew it to be the staccato sound of reigns. I squinted at the approaching intruder. It was a wagon drawn by two, sturdy-looking holsteiners.



As it came nearer, I could see two figures seated on the tongue. One was small and very fair. The other, taller and quite dark. A man and a woman, perhaps. A married couple. Then I was struck by a very exciting notion indeed. Maybe there were children inside of that wagon! My father and his water forgotten, I raced down towards our guests.



Storm clouds of the sort that threatened but never fell rolled in. The sky was inked with them. Had I been concerned with signs, I might have known to beware.

The loose sand swallowed my shoes, making it difficult to run. At the bottom of the mound, I landed smack-dab into Goodwife Ottomas who took me by the shoulders and spun me back around.



"Get your Papa." Her voice was low but urgent. The wagon came to a halt. I paused to study it. "You deaf? Go on now, git!" Goodwife Ottomas patted my backside and just as I started back up the dune, my father's figure rose against the skyline, gazing down upon the lesser mortals below. Goodwife Ottomas approached the wagon while my father began his decent and I followed close behind.

The smaller of our two visitors hopped down from the tongue, circling to the other side to aid the taller one. I could see now that they were both men (which was a disappointment-- alas! no children) and that the taller one was positively ancient. Goodwife Ottomas stopped some fifteen feet away, shielding me behind her skirts.

As the young man gripped the old one to keep him steady, I first noted how ghastly the young man was in appearance. His skin and hair were depigmented save the dusky flourish of red in his lips and the vein-blue scars that mapped his face. A soiled rag was tied tight around his eyes. As he brought the old man forward, I noticed that the young man walked with the confidence of a sighted person but with a pronounced limp. My eyes trailed from his colorless hands to the strange dress of the old man and upward, towards the old man's beatific grin.



"Salute the day! Peace be with you ladies and gentleman," the old man shouted. "My name is Hieronymous Rotwang Von Dussell. Time traveller, soothsayer, necromancer and clairvoyant. Former advisor to the now deposed royal family of Alpinloch." By now, the other members of our party were beginning to assemble at the sound of his booming voice. I puzzled over the term time traveller but said nothing as I continued to gawk at the pair. The young man folded his arms over his chest and Von Dussell patted him on the back. "This is my assistant Heath but do not anticipate getting a word out of him-- Mostly deaf and utterly dumb from birth, I'm afraid. Good man for keeping secrets."

"What sorts of secrets?" I looked up at Goodwife Ottomas, whose attitude had shifted from cautious to bored in a matter of moments. Von Dussell's eyes glittered at her question. He licked his upper lip.

"Why the mysteries that tether man to the universe, my dear woman," he said. Goodwife Ottomas snorted in derision. I turned my attention to the Heath creature.



Deaf, dumb, blind-- He must have been the most isolated man in the world and yet his body language made apparent that he was very much there in the moment with the rest of us. He had not heard me speak or move, that was certain enough, but his head tilted slowly until my eyes met the canvas space where his eyes should have been. I was being addressed without words and from that gesture alone, I knew the cunning in him. My father broke away from the crowd to greet Von Dussell.



"Hello Master Von Dussell. Please allow me to be the first to welcome you. My name is Kahlil Muenda and I was a physician in my past life. Where are you headed, if you don't mind my asking?" Von Dussell took my father's hand and shook it.

"As far away from Shintow Gate as providence will carry us! If I never see another pointed ear again then by heaven, I will not have spent my declining years in vain!" My father laughed his baritone laugh and patted the old man on the shoulder.



"Why don't you join us for supper? We've short commons but could seat two more provided you gentlemen have a stomach for coney stew." Papa said.

"Bless you, son but we would not want to burden your women with an old man and a cripple."

"Nonsense. It's Mr. Curious back there that does the cooking." Here, I lost interest in the conversation and turned back to Heath.



To everyone else, he seemed a ghost, a non-presence but I felt my gaze being continually drawn to his war-battered face. I smiled at him though he could not have seen. And I'll be damned if he didn't smirk back, if only just.