Do not ask me now I came here,

Do not ask my name or nation,

Do not ask my destination,

For I am Dawadana, me Far Sighted,

Dawadana, Seer and Singer,

Who core the lance, the Justice Bringer,

Who Drought the law out of the East,

Sworn to seek but never speak.

W. S. HARTE, "The Maker or Laws"

He was, of course, the same youth I had seen at the house. His face was so thickly painted I knew him only by his white hands and red eyes. He did not appear to recognize me at all and seemed a little disappointed. "Do you know where Ayanawatta is?"

I guessed he'd failed to find fish in the river and had gone hunting in the woods, since his bow and a lance were missing.

"Well, we have some big game to hunt now, " the newcomer said. "I've found him at last. I would have reached him sooner if I had understood my pygmy dream better."

This was offered as apology. He returned to his mount and led the great woolly black pachyderm down to the water to drink. I admired the saddle blanket and the beaded bridle. Attached to the intricately carved wooden saddle was a long, painted quiver from which the sharp metal tongues of several lances jutted. Beaver and otter fur covered the saddle and parts of his bridle. The mammoth herself was, as I had thought, not in her prime. There were grizzled marks around her mouth and trunk, and her ivory was stained and cracked, but she moved with surprising speed, turning her vast, tusked head once to look into my eyes, perhaps to convince herself that I was friendly. Reassured, she dipped her trunk delicately into the cold water, her hairy tail swinging back and forth, twitching with pleasure. As his mount quenched her mighty thirst, the young man knelt beside the water and began rubbing the black paint from his face, hair and arms. When he stood up he was once again the youth I had seen at the house. His wet hair was still streaked with mud or whatever he had put in it, but it was as white as my own. He seemed about ten years younger than me. His face had none of the terror and pleading I had seen such a short time before. He was ebullient, clearly pleased with himself.

I chose to keep my own counsel. Before I offered too much, I would wait until I had a better idea of what all this meant. I would instead give him a hint.

"I am Oona, Elric's daughter, " I said. This apparently was nothing to him, but he sensed I expected him to recognize me.

"That's a fairly common name, " he said. "Have we met before?"

"I thought we had."

He frowned politely and then shook his head. "I should have remembered you. Here, I have never seen a woman of my own coloring and size." He was unsurprised.

"Were you expecting to see me?"

"You are White Buffalo Woman?"

"I believe so."

"Then I was expecting to see you. We play out our parts within the prophecy, eh?" He winked. "If we do not, the pathways tangle and strangle themselves. We should lose all we've gained. If you had not been here, at the time I foretold, then I should have been concerned. But it disturbs me that the third of our trio is missing."

I knew enough of travelers' etiquette not to ask him any more than he told me. Many supernatural travelers, using whatever means they choose, must work for years to reach a certain road, a particular destination. With a single wrong step or misplaced word, their destination is gone again! To know the future too well is to change it.

"What name will you give for yourself?" I asked.

"My spirit name is White Crow, " said the youth, "and I am a student with the Kakatanawa, sent, as my family always sends its children, to learn from them. My quest joins with yours at this point. I have already completed my first three tasks. This will be my fourth and last great task. You will help me here as I will help you later. Everything becomes clear at the right time. We all work to save the Balance." He had undone the straps holding the surprisingly light saddle and supported it as it slid towards him, dumping it heavily to the ground, the spears rattling. "We walk the path of the Balance." He spoke almost offhandedly, filling a big skin of water and washing down the black mammoth's legs and belly. "And this old girl is called Bes. The word means 'queen' in her language. She, too, serves the Balance well." With a grunt and a great heave, Bes moved deeper into the water, then lifted her long, supple trunk and sprayed her own back, luxuriating in the absence of her saddle.

"The Cosmic Balance?"

"The Balance of the world, " he said, clearly unfamiliar with my phrase. "Has Ayanawatta told you nothing? He grows more discreet." The young man grinned and pushed back his wet hair. "The Lord of Winds has gone mad and threatens to destroy our longhouse and all that it protects." He took bunches of grass and began to clean the long, curving tusks as his animal wallowed deeper into the stream, gazing at him with fierce affection. "My task was to seek the lost treasures of the Kakatanawa and bring them to our longhouse so that our home tree will not die. It is my duty and my privilege, for me to serve thus."

"And what are these treasures?" I asked.

"Together they comprise the Soul of the World. Once they are restored, they will be strong enough to withstand the Lord of the Winds. The power of all these elementals increases. They do not merely threaten our lives but our way of thinking. A generation ago we all understood the meaning and value of our ways. Now even the great Lords of the Higher Worlds forget."

I was already familiar with those insane Lords and Ladies of Law who had lost all sense of their original function. They had gone mad in defense of their own power, their own orthodoxy. Lords of the Wind normally served neither Law nor Chaos, but like all elementals had no special loyalties, except to blood and tradition. White Crow agreed.

"There's a madness in Chaos, " he said, "just as there can be in Law. These forces take many forms and many names across the multiverse. To call them Good or Evil is never to know them, never to control them, for there are times when Chaos does good and Law does evil and vice versa. The tiniest action of any kind can have extreme and monumental consequences. Out of the greatest acts of evil can spring the greatest powers for good. Equally, from acts of great goodness, pure evil can spring. That is the first thing any adept learns. Only then can their education truly begin." He spoke almost like a schoolboy who had only recently learned these truths.

Clearly there was a connection with the events Ulric and I had experienced earlier, but it was a subtle one. This battle for the Balance never ended. For it to end would probably be a contradiction in terms. Upon the Balance depended the central paradox of all existence. Without life there is no death. Without death there is no life. Without Law, no Chaos. Without Chaos, no Law. And the balance was maintained by the tensions between the two forces. Without those tensions, without the Balance, we should know only a moment's consciousness as we faced oblivion. Time would die. We would live that unimaginably terrible final moment for eternity. Those were the stakes in the Game of Time. Law or Chaos. Life or Death. Good and evil were secondary qualities, often reflecting the vast variety of values by which conscious creatures conduct their affairs across the multiverse. Yet a system which accepted so many differing values, such a wealth of altering realities, could not exist without morality, and it was the learning of those ethics and values which concerned an apprentice mukhamirim. Until it was possible to look beyond any system to the individual, the would-be adept remained blind to the supernatural and generally at its mercy.