One crisp autumn morning, when Yaltring was seven, his sister and a brother were playing with him on the beach. Darkness and dreams were driven to the other side of the world, vanquished for now in the bright sunlight that painted the sand and played in twinkles upon the water.

The north coast of Imme was quiet. Only a single small white puff marred the sky’s clear blue sheen. No one was near but for a lad of thirteen from their nearby village, a little older and quite a bit taller than Yaltring’s siblings, soon to be made a man, on the first full moon of next summer. He was there to look after them, but for now, he was playing too.

The three older children were building an immense fort out of wet sand. Yaltring, however, was too lazy to help. He preferred running all around, kicking up sand with his feet and throwing seashells everywhere, occasionally denting the fort with a well-aimed toss. Rosa and Fimak, his sister and brother, were getting annoyed with him.

"Stay close by!" said Rosa, who at eleven was the youngest of the family after him, and considered him her special ward. "We’re supposed to watch you." Yaltring, however, went on making rude noises and running vaguely towards the sea.

As the sand grew wet beneath his bare feet, he raised his head to see the waves coming towards him, to drink in their immensity and violence--and saw something else. "Hey!" he shouted, and pointed.

All the others looked up. "What’s that?" asked Fimak in great surprise.

"Well, it’s a boat, silly," said Marfo, the older boy, gazing at the brown-and-white speck gliding slipperily towards them.

"It doesn’t look like anybody’s boat I know," said Fimak. "And what’s it doing out there?"

The boat was a long way off, tiny but clearly visible, still making its way towards land.

"It must’ve been driven out of its way by a storm," said Rosa, with a knowledgeable air.

"There haven’t been any storms lately!" said Marfo.

Yaltring stared at it. He had never seen a boat land on this beach, or leave from it, either. True, he was young, but he lived near the shore, and saw men and women, even older children, coming and going on boats almost as often as their legs.

"Why would anybody land here?" asked Marfo, watching the boat’s slow progress. "There’s not even a rock to tie your boat behind. It’s totally exposed. And the wind always blows out here, anyway."

Three seagulls came wheeling suddenly past them, crying answers, sharp and clear, but that they could not understand.

After a while, they could see it for a small sailboat occupied by a single man. His sail was down, and he was rowing hard to fight the tough winds.

"I can’t make out who he is," said Marfo.

They watched the little figure expectantly. The boat drew closer.

"Wait a moment," said Rosa softly, almost under her breath. "Who is that?"

There was a moment’s pause.

"It’s a stranger," said Fimak. "It’s a stranger!"

"It’s a stranger, it’s a stranger!" shouted Rosa, jumping up and down.

Marfo spoke. "You others go back to town and tell people. I’ll stay here and keep a watch on him."

But they didn’t budge.

"Go on!" said Marfo sternly. "Leave now, it might not be safe."

"I’m staying," said Rosa. "I want to see. I’ve never seen a stranger before."

"It’s not safe! Go!" said Marfo. "I’m the eldest!" But none of the others was inclined to listen. The little boat was drawing near; the man had spotted them, but the children were of little concern at the moment: he was trying to pinpoint how far in he could row above the sandy shallows.

Even little Yaltring had stopped running and was huddled with the others, watching intently. He, too, had never seen a stranger, and was a little surprised to discover that they had eyes and skin and teeth, like people. He remembered when his grandparents came. He had only been five then. They had sailed from far away to the south, the island of Tizrach, where his mother was born. Though not as slender they were dark like her, with chocolatey skin and chestnutty hair, long and curling. Their eyes were bright and piercing amidst deep-lined faces, and they spoke slowly in the tongue of his land. Alone or with Sila, their words came in swift tumbling bursts, in what he had thought until then to be his mother’s own private language. He had heard them, once, sitting with her, speak his name, Yaltring, saying that he had upon him a powerful mark of destiny, laid from birth; they said more, in that strange, beckoning speech, full of harshness and spurting syllables, of which he made out nothing but the word "traveler." Then his mother, seeing his understanding, had hustled him out of the room. When they left, the whole island saw them off, and a lucky young man of fifteen, distant cousin of Yaltring, was chosen to accompany them back. They were not of Imme, but they were not strangers.

Warily, curiously, the children eyed the man in the boat, tall and brown and lithe. He did not look much different from them, village-children of the Southeast Islands: except that there was something about his eyes that was not Southeastern, and perhaps not of this world. It frightened them, but also excited them, because they thought, mistakenly, that only children would fear it.

"Help me with this boat, children," said the man, with a blank, perusing smile. He had finally stopped rowing and was trying to pull it aground.

The children stared into his eyes, wild, whirling, green as a fetid pool, shallow and unfathomable. His voice wheezed sharp through heavy breaths; his chest heaved as he struggled with the boat.

"Well? Aren’t you going to help?" he cried, catching each in turn in a penetrating stare. Then they all jumped forward and pulled.

"When will the tide come up this far?" the man asked Marfo.

"Not for hours."

"Good! Well, then, let’s leave it here for now. I thank you kindly for your help. I’m Way-Goner, and I am at your service, little masters!" He spoke with a thin pleasantness that came down to them like a wan sun high above a frozen land. The children had never been to a frozen land, and they had never heard a voice like that voice. As with any newly-learned disgust, it was captivating.

"And what are your names?"

"I’m Yaltring, and this is my sister--"

"Shh!" hissed Marfo, who had been taught enough to know the virtue of caution with strangers.

"Well," said Way-Goner, smiling still, "I see who I have to contend with. Hadn’t you better run along to your papa, and warn him of the danger?" He smirked, and blinked, and just for one split second all four children thought they saw a threat flash through his face; and then it was gone, shriveled into a laugh that was unexpectedly happy-sounding, though its delight seemed to be with something far away that they could not expect to fathom. The siblings thought he must have a wisdom even greater than other adults. Marfo thought otherwise.

"Look--" he said to Fimak, "you’d better run along and fetch someone. I’ll stay here and guard the others." He looked a bit pale, and there was a sickly, determined gleam in his eyes. Fimak saw it, took his meaning, looked around at the man again, then ran off towards the village.

"Where are you from, Way-Goner?" asked Yaltring.

The man turned and for the first time looked at him closely. A light went into his eyes, and bored into Yaltring’s. "And you--where are you from?" he asked the little boy in his strangely hollow voice.

"From here, Imme," said Yaltring, too fast for even Rosa to silence him, for she had understood Marfo’s warning.

"You’ve never been away?" He searched deeper into Yaltring’s face. "And yet--and yet--" Way-Goner turned and stared off into the distance, pondering with vacant eye.

Rosa shivered.

The man turned back to face Yaltring. "Come, my boy. Come, all of you! Together, we can make a new world." He turned towards the sky, dreamily, shrewdly, as if he had cut a deal with the moon and sun, and gotten the better end of it.

"What are you talking about?" asked Marfo sharply.

"I have heard it," said Way-Goner, to them, and yet as if to himself. "It is happening. It is already happening! The world will soon need brave new warriors." He leered at them all, then turned to Marfo. "Will you sire children of your own?"

"Aye, I think so," said Marfo, after a moment’s puzzled pause.

"Good! I cannot--not since I was gifted with the news," the man replied.

"What news?" said Rosa.

"It’s all going to change," Way-Goner gloated, his words like sticky sugar. "Everything. I have heard it, I can feel it. I can even see it, sometimes, when I look further into things. You are wise children, sharp children, yes, that is clear. Haven’t any of you noticed the difference?"

"Difference from what?" demanded Marfo defiantly, putting his hands on the shoulders of the other two children.

"You, young sir," said Way-Goner, patting Yaltring’s head, his voice slowly growing strident, "may be too young to remember, but there wasn’t always the new plan. I didn’t know it myself until I listened to the hole in the ground. That told me--yes. Why, it told me almost more than I could hear. You will not die in the world you know. There’s a new beauty coming to murder the old life, seeping into the world in a silent wave. Such sharp, smart children, you must noticed. You must have felt something, even if you didn’t know what it was--heh?"

"You heard something from a hole in the ground?" asked Marfo incredulously. He and Rosa were now eyeing the man with unalloyed astonishment and suspicion. Yaltring was also amazed, but, unlike the others, he had not detached himself from the world of Way-Goner’s words.

"Aye, on Karahasa," said the man. "You must know where that is."

Marfo nodded briefly, and looked nervously at the other two children. Slowly, after a hesitation, they nodded as well, their heads bobbing like underwater marionettes. Yaltring knew only that it was an island lying far to the west.

"Have you been there?" Way-Goner demanded.

With the same slowness, they all shook their heads. But Rosa turned, for she had heard, coming over the ridge behind them, the voices of many who had seen and heard far more than she.

The men and women gathered on the beach stood in a half-circle, surrounding the stranger against the sea. Sila clutched Rosa tightly and Yaltring still more so. Her husband and other three sons were huddled around her. The people of the northern village of Afa, where the children lived, and other passers-by, all stared silently at the wild, green-eyed man, who stood still by his boat, looking out over sea and land.

In that space, there was a silence. At length a man, Maekhu, one of the most respected elders of the island, stepped forward. "Who are you?" he asked bluntly.

"Me? Me?" The man laughed that same uncomfortable laugh. "Why, they call me Way-Goner, if anyone wants to know. But I haven’t traveled all the way from the Inner Seas to tell you my name. No." He paused, and looked around at the whole crowd. It was hard to say if he relished their discomfort, or was oblivious to it. "I came to tell you what I heard."

"What you heard where?" cried a voice, mildly sarcastic, from the middle of the crowd.

"What I heard on Karahasa, at the Place of the Ferns. Has any of you been there?"

Most of the people looked at one another quizzically, and scornful grunts, low but plain, could be heard. But one man cleared his throat.

"I know of the place," he said simply. There was surprise, and sudden quiet, and everyone turned around to face him. Slowly, the man, Jerid, a slight, quiet fellow of about forty-five, stepped forward, placing himself between Way-Goner and the crowd.

It was to the crowd that he turned. "I lived for a time," said Jerid, "in my youth, in Karahasa, where I stayed a few months with an aunt and uncle. The Place of the Ferns is spoken of there. It is a special place, a garden, within the grounds of the Hall of Lords, where the oldest families live. Few are allowed to go there. Inside, there is said to be a voice.

"However," he continued, "it is also said that it is unwise to listen too long and hard to that voice. And so," and now he turned to face the lone man against the sea, "we should ask this stranger, this Way-Goner: where are you from, and what is your business here? We on Imme do not receive many visitors, and fewer that we don’t know. Do you have kin on this island?"

"I am a traveler from isle to isle," said Way-Goner smoothly, "bringing with me great news, which all should hear. All. And, also, seeking--for the one that was spoken of."

"Frankly, sir," said Maekhu, "you speak in riddles. We cannot understand what you say, or how it concerns us. You speak of bringing news, and yet you do not make yourself plain. What, exactly, do you want to tell us?"

Way-Goner turned his head to Jerid: "The voice that speaks--you have heard it?"

"I have not heard it," said Jerid, after a hesitation, "but I know what they say. I was only a lad--"

"I have heard it," said Way-Goner. "I have heard it and seen it. Do you know where the voice comes from?" He lifted his eyebrows mockingly.

"No one knows that," Jerid stated plainly. "The voice comes out of a hole in the ground. No one knows where--"

"Indeed, you are right!" Way-Goner exclaimed in triumph. "It comes out of a hole in the ground! Has anyone here ever heard such a voice?" His own voice rose until it ended almost in a scream. The people shuddered.

Maekhu turned and spoke in a low voice. "Not to doubt your word, which I know to be excellent, good Jerid, but--you were, as you said, only a lad, and only there a short while. How do you know that this is really true?"

"All the people in Karahasa know of it," Jerid said shortly, "maybe not the traders, but those who live there. It is one of the Chief Places, though it is spoken of indirectly or in whispers, not as he is speaking here."

Maekhu turned back to Way-Goner. "Why do you speak so boldly," he asked, "of a place that is fearful and sacred?"

"Fearful? Fearful?" Way-Goner laughed aloud again. "Why, you may fear it, and many others have--and do--but I don’t fear it! No, why should I fear it? ‘Don’t go listen to that voice, Way-Goner,’ they all told me, ‘it will suck you in. Your mind will vanish into that hole.’ But I did listen--and listen--and listen. And I learned!" His face beamed with a strange power. The people backed imperceptibly away.

"I have learned, my good people," he went on in a lower voice, as if taking them into a grave confidence reserved for a special few, "of the new way of things that is to come into the world. I have learned much of the changes that are to happen--great, terrible changes! The world you now know of shall pass and fall! From here to the Western Isles, from north to south of Umba, all shall be changed. All, in time, shall hear a single voice and follow. No longer will people live like this, in their little islands, even on Umba itself, cut off and unaware from one valley to the next. There is much, much to be said, more than I have time to tell." He looked around at his audience’s puzzled, worried faces with a proud, secretive grin.

"And I have learned that there is one who is to set it all into motion, all with a little twist--" He stopped, surveyed the crowd. "All across the Southeast Islands I have sought him, and it may be that he is here. It might--be--" He stopped, and looked even harder. The crowd shrank and tensed.

"You!" he exclaimed triumphantly, and pointed his finger straight at Yaltring.

Sila recoiled in horror, and pulled him behind her. All eyes turned to the little boy.

"You, if you are indeed the one, will come to land from far shores, recognizing the Four Peoples. Yes, all of them, each in their turn! It is you who will bring the Four together--even as they part for good.

"You will travel the longest road, until you see even the unseen shore! And because of you, because of..." He paused, and his eyes for a moment lost their fanatical certainty. "Because of a slip of your wrist, it says--I do not yet know the meaning of that--but I am seeking, I am seeking"--his confidence and higher pitch returned--"because of a slip of your wrist, kingdoms shall rise and fall. Because of a slip of your wrist, new worlds shall be set in motion, and old ones into wrack. Yes, I have heard it. Yes, it is spoken."

Yaltring, who had broken free from Sila and run away when she tried to cover his ears, shouted, "What will I do?"

"You will be reckoned great among men, some day," said Way-Goner in almost a cackle. "Yes, I think you are the one! It is written upon you! Long and far I have sought you, if I do not mistake."

Yaltring’s mother finally caught up with him. "Yaltring!" she cried, almost in a scream, grabbing him in her arms and running away. Her eyes were wide and bright, her smooth face taut.

"Now, Sila," said Drengo to her quietly, running to put his hand upon her wrist, "there is no need, there is no need. This man cannot harm us. We are all here. He has only words, wild and crazy words from tortured lips. He cannot hurt us."

"My child shall not hear this!" whispered Sila fiercely.

"Let me go!" piped Yaltring.

"Do not make him wonder," said Drengo. "Let him hear. He will find out anyway, from others. There is nothing you can do to stop it. All the other children will tell him what this man says. Do not make him distrust you."

"I will not have my child written over by those akharsha words, from that--man!" Like akhrishana, akharsha means crazy, but there is a difference. A woman asked to elope might call her lover akhrishana. Someone caught profaning a sacred place, or poisoning a well, was akharsha.

Meanwhile, Way-Goner had been speaking grandly to his still-captive crowd.

"You see, the fear?" he said. "Only I am not afraid--I, and this child! See how his mother runs from the prophecy!"

The crowd turned aside from his fierce, eager face and murmured. But Sila could bear no more, and those were the last words Yaltring ever heard from his mouth, cradled in her arms as she ran from his father, away from the beach and the crowd.

She would not let him out of the house all day. It was only later from Rosa, in whispers, that Yaltring learned how Way-Goner had been screamed at by a woman from Shaxa, a village on the west shore of Imme, told he was a pestilence and a curse, and finally driven from the island, not two hours after arriving, by the crowd she had emboldened. They had given him water only, and told him not to return. As he was rowing away, he whistled a merry tune, and said, "I will not be here when the iron fist comes upon this land." The crowd, even then, had shuddered. "And all the lands around it," he continued. "All around it!" A young man threw a rock at him then; it sang and missed, bouncing off the top of the boat. But others in the crowd grabbed the young man at once, speaking in low tones of the fear of curses. Way-Goner laughed, raising the sail to let the wind take him, and said something else that Rosa could not understand.

Night came in the little house. Rosa had to leave for bed early. Yaltring was silent and thoughtful, lingering in the hall, weighing the shadows in his hands.

"At first," his mother told him, "there was just an egg."

Yaltring lay on her lap, sleepily listening to the sound of the rain pattering against the roof and walls and doors and the deep sills of the dark open windows, and the sound of her voice repeating words he had heard before, many times, pattering against his ears in long streaming strands and slipping through the cracks and keyholes. Watching her with captured eyes, he listened more to the voice than the words as the dark branches tossed behind the windows.

"We all came out of the egg, Mama?"

"Yes, we did. Long, long ago, before the world we live in even began, and before there were people like you and me who walked on two legs. Long ago they came, they came. The moon, too, she came, my darling, from underneath in the dark, where she had ruled so long." She began rocking him in her arms to the rhythm of her words, and as she did so, she started to sing.

But he was already asleep.