To the far desert he rode, with such speed tat sandstorms raged all around but parted to let him pass. With a mission in his eyes he made his horse walk long in the desert far from an oasis. Together they passed beneath the burning disc in the sky on to the interior of the great desert and the heat which made the very ground shake.

He saw no man in that grand sandpit of the world until a long time had passed. Then far on the horizon he made out a group of men walking most sedately across the face of a dune, as though they were in attendance at the funeral of the sand. The jester gained upon their position with speed. When he was riding close behind them he broke the whispering silence of the desert with a word.

‘Greetings,’ he said, and as one they turned their darkly wrapped faces to him and their eyes buried in the folds of their clothes looked out at him most suspiciously.

‘Good day, dark son,’ replied the apparent leader of the group.

‘I wish news from you, denizen of the desert.’

‘News in these times is like water in high summer. It may keep a man alive and be used to bargain with those less fortunate. I ask you, why do you wish news from me, and how is it that I have news of use to you? It is clear in your manner that you are not a friend of the desert.’

‘A friend or no, I am looking for a man who passed this way a long time ago. He was less a man and more a boy, and yet he had eyes of a man long twisted by the world.’

‘I know the very boy you speak of. To us he is known, a friend and a goodly man. On our first meeting we helped him much, because the desert is no place for a man of such small stature. Our expectance was never to see like again, but on a morning when three times the moon has been full since, he came upon us in a fever of joy and told us of such exploits that we allowed him once more to stay with us.’

‘Tell me the same tale good sir, if you would.’

‘I shall, because it deserves to be known far and wide, although I cannot tell you here on this dune. IN the desert nowhere is safe, but some places are safer than others. Come, we must away to the oasis.’

They turned and rode away, and the jester rode with the leader, his bells calming the hot wind. During the ride they spoke at intervals and soon the jester asked the man of the rumours he had heard.

‘Tell me, sir, of the nature of the war I have heard rumours of raging.’

‘War has but one nature, and in the rumours and the rage it is likely that this is the very guise it has taken. I no nothing more of the war of which you speak. There is such a pall of rumour over the world that I seek to know no more than I am granted to, and I believe that by your intervention I am destined to know more than I need to survive. I know only that there was a man in a city near the coast who I believe claimed to be a most powerful man. Power in such men means no more than the will to command other men as though they are less men than beasts, thus making the commander more so. This man did such deeds in that city that his reputation grew more out of fear of him than of admiration for him. Tales I have heard that would chill your very bones, and they are not for such a day as this.’

The jester, who had up until now been looking across the desert searching the hot and shifting sands for the oasis amidst the mirages, looked sharply at the man.

‘Say on now, or forever you will be in the darkness that you will wish this infernal sunlight may come to deliver you.’

Somewhat taken aback by the anger in the jester’s response the old man did speak, but low and careful, as though the very sand may spread the heinous tale.

‘This man, who men call Chief, has done such things to the people of that city that they made to travel from it, and go elsewhere. I saw a group of them for afar, walking most unprepared into the basin of the sands. The same group I saw a week later, although they had never made it into the basin, for I saw them nailed to stakes buried deep in the sand. The sand had scoured them overmuch, and as I approached to see if life still lingered I saw their faces and knew that life had been stripped from them in the teeth of a storm. They had been caught fleeing from the city and this thing had been done to them. Over the next weeks I saw similar sights, further and further afield until I came across a ,mass of twisted bodies on the very edge of the mountains. This man knows no boundaries, and he seeks to slay all who run from him.’

‘This man you speak of, have you ever seen him?’

‘No, only the tales and rumours of his deeds, and of course the evidence for them.’

‘This evidence, could it have only been made by the charges of the man?’

‘On what do you harp, sir?’

‘On the assumption that mayhap all you see are the evils of your own nation, and you seek to give hide them behind the guise of a man who does not exist.’

The rider looked at him from within his shroud, in anger at what the jester suggested.

‘I assure you sir this an did exist, for that boy whom you seek did also look for him. He found him there in that city and slew him on his throne.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘This man-child returned from his quest and made it clear to us that he had done so in short order. He stayed with us for a time and then departed.’

‘Had he a girl with him?’

‘No, sir, him alone.’

‘Did he speak of his father?’

‘Once again no.’

‘How are you so sure that what he speaks is the truth? If this man, the Chief you have named, is now dead, should it be that the evils of the world should have ceased?’

‘Indeed, yes.’

‘So how is it that you must tread the roads of the world with one hand on your sword and the other on your purse? Fear has not died, no man can claim to slay that which makes humans human. Did this child say where he was bound to after he left you? I wish to speak to him and find out for myself the nature of his tale.’

‘He expressed need to returned home, although no more indication that that did he give. I know not his homeland.’

‘Fear not, I know it.’

‘Then sir, I advise you to go there and find for yourself a most valiant man who has rid the world of an evil that preyed on the innocent and guilty alike.’

‘I shall go as you say, but I shall find no more than a child who has used his fantastical tongue to gain your favour when no reality was within him.’

The jester turned his horse away from the slow camel train and began the long journey back across the desert. Before he departed he looked with longing over his shoulder, as he realised he never did find the oasis.