Tales in the Sand
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Illus. Alan Rabinowitz
[Look at the map]
“…And that was how the moons wept tears that the owls carried away. Eh? So it is! Well, welcome! I’m so glad to see you here that our language is thirty words short of ways for me to express my happiness. Yes, I am the Loreweaver, though I was called Hakim in the years before that man was born. Back then, he told lies. Now I tell stories. Oh, some of them might still be lies, but every house of folklore is built on a foundation of truth. And I’ve lived in many, many houses.
“Some houses, sadly, are blades of grass before a storm. They pull free from the soil and disappear on a strong wind, or they’re twisted and ruined beneath the driving rain. Such were those houses of the village of Kenlo when once a dragon came seeking prey. Do you know this tale? It is as much the tale of a young woman who found her destiny in an amber stone as it is that of a city in danger.
“I lived in a house once that, unfortunately, sat on a sandy hillside. The mundungu who built this house, a sulking wizard with a passion for brevity, set the rooms end to end. So it was that when the sands slid down the hill, only one room at a time tumbled to its ruin. The goatherds living on the plains below thought this was a most riotous event, and they often gathered to wager how long till the next room fell. Goatherds somehow see the simple truth in most everything, I think, and they believe in the best to come. Such a goatherd was Jojo. Do you know his story?
[The Song of the Lonely Goatherd]
“I have often imagined that the house itself had a tale to tell–most things do, in truth. Every cloud can tell of the storms it has waged, every stream remembers the banks it has passed, and every beast has dreams of the hunt and of the kill. Have you ever seen a wild animal stalk its prey? Can you close your eyes and imagine how it feels to possess the stealth of the panther?
“Oh, no, no, no. You wish to hear a different story? A feral shadow’s tale, or a Breathstealer’s saga? Then you must be patient and listen, and perhaps the tale you long to hear will appear in another story–as is so often the case. Now. I have already offered to tell you three stories, which is three more than you’ve offered me. Which do you want to hear first?”