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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 questjoins 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. Oncethey 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