Angh was a small yellow man who specialized in the use and maintenance of the mechanical devices that they all depended upon in this magical realm. Angh was also a body healer and thus the camp physician. Bruco liked pretending that he did not like Angh, because Angh was so unmanly and had somehow stumbled upon a fine wench for himself, one that cared for him openly.

In reality Bruco liked Angh quite a lot. Bruco had difficulty learning new languages. As far as he knew he was the only person in the world who spoke fire-island, and he spoke that poorly. His whistling tongue, he was given to understand, had been preserved by the order of the Spanish masters.

This saddened him.

As for Spanish, he intentionally mangled the language, except when wooing a Spanish-speaking wench. This was a reflection of his deep-seated antipathy towards those who had stolen the land of his forefathers. This feeling was made even more bitter by the claim of the Spaniard who had purchased Tapalma. That soft sugar-master claimed to have fathered Bruco, and this rankled him.

Perhaps you’re hatred for the Spanish is partially to blame for the rift between you and your wife?

But she is only part Spanish—the rest redskin heathen, of good meaty stock too.

Partially then, perhaps?

Must she be right even in my own mind’s eye?

Would Tapalma have it any other way, Exile?

Angh came to him in the morning beside his hammock, which Bruco kept strung near Maria’s wheeled house. He had with him his book of words, with the pictures of children playing with their pets. In this way the yellow warlock had been attempting to teach Bruco how to speak English, which was the language of sorcery, and of this land.

Angh looked up to him, and chirped in English, “Walk and talk Bruco?”

Augulis was just then coming in from the trees with the rising sun, and it was Bruco’s turn to patrol. So he nodded to the little yellow man and they walked off up the trail that circled the base of the mountain. Their campsite had trails that led nowhere as it was a rest area for elderly people of means who had left the towns to travel in wheeled houses in their old age. A couple of this sort had joined them.

As he and Angh walked off, Bruco pointed to the path. “Trail” and then to a tree and named that as well. They continued on in this way until they reached the overlook that took in the highway and the river, Bruco’s favorite vantage. Despite the unmanly nature of the warlock, Bruco liked him like a cousin, a distance sniveling cousin, but a cousin all the same.

Angh then pointed to Bruco’s banot; his man-tall wrist-thick oak fighting staff.

Bruco snarled, “Banot”.

Angh winked and smiled, and then gave the expression of wanting a fuller explanation with his eyebrows. Bruco grinned, “Staff!”

As he said this thing with a comic emphasis he felt himself take a body blow. As he doubled over he was brought to mind of old Garjonay, who lived beneath the sacred mountain by the same name, who had taught him to fight with the stick. An image of the old goatherd recluse thrusting the butt of his banot into little Bruco’s belly and checking the stroke, flashed into his mind’s eye. But this stroke was not checked by the hand of the mighty Time-bending sorcerer who had sent it.

He looked up with a knowing start into Angh’s creased and slanted eyes. Angh nodded and confirmed his suspicions in Spanish, which—though Bruco hated the tongue—Angh had learned from Maria to be able to speak with Bruco, and teach him the sorcerer’s tongue of English, “You are getting ‘the call’ Bruco. It must be Three-Rivers. Our evidence indicates that such an overpowering initial reaction is due to the physical proximity of the caller. In other words, Three-Rivers is nearly on this spot, in whichever time he is calling from—the 17th Century I think. If that is the case you will be gone soon, within the hour, as soon as the event horizon folds.”

Angh then produced a writing stick and made to scribble in the word book, looking all the while like a sorcerer observing a prince being turned into a toad. “Bruco, could you describe any of the symptoms to me. We do not truly understand the specifics of the science, only appreciate it in broad theoretical and narrow experiential terms.

Yes, now I recall why I dislike their prodding kind so!

“Draw down your britches and let me drive this banot up your little yellow ass so that you will know exactly how it feels!”

Oh that pained him in his heart. The Turks raped him in prison while I snapped the necks of those who snored too loudly. That shall ever be in his hollow place where the sky-spirit lurks.

He felt a sinking pang in his guts, and suddenly became afraid that that insult would be the last words his helpful warlock friend would ever hear from him.

“I’m sorry Angh. I did not mean harm to your heart. It is just so blasted uncomfortable to have a Time-bending demon crawl up your ass and build himself a house in your guts!”

He then reminded himself that he was Bruco, Last of the Exiles: who, some ages ago in The Land of Flowers, staved-in Don Soto’s Champion’s head before an entire army of whining Spanish dogs! He did not want to end up whenever it was he was going to bowing to this pain. He strained, straightened up, and stood proudly, handing off his banot to Angh. “Give this to Marco if I do not return.”

His guts turned to liquid fire and his heel and crown began to flame up as he looked to the far rolling hills across the river, and saw it: not over there, but here, within him, a horizon, a small one, growing within his mind…