-I know what I see, the old man says and there is real kindness in his voice. -I have in my time seen enough men go native. It’s an affectation, son, whatever you think now. But I won’t lecture you. There’s no recrimination. I will only tell you that history is coming, and your new tribe best move from its path.

-But dammit, says Judah. -This isn’t empty land!

The old man looks bewildered. -What they have, what they’ve had lying there for centuries in that marsh, whatever it is, it’s welcome to face the history I bring, if it can.

Back in deep waterland among the stiltspear, Judah does not know what to say. The fronds gather behind him, a closure he knows is a lie.

The children try to make him learn their golems again. He has never affected the smallest glamour before, has thought himself without talent. A stiltspear elder approaches while he strains, and touches Judah’s chest. Judah opens his eyes, feels things move in him. Whether it is the touch, the air of the swamp, or the raw things he has been eating, he feels a facility he never has, and in astonishment he sees that just faintly he can make his mud model move. The stiltspear children give little hums of acclaim.

-There are some coming, he says at night. The stiltspear only stare politely. -There are men coming and they will fill your swamp. They will split your wetlands, and diminish them.

Judah recalls the map. A neat trisection. Ink that will come to be a changed land, millions of tons of displaced scree and a devastation of the trees.

-They will not stop for you. They will not move for you. You must go. You must go south to where the other clans hunt, deeper, farther away.

There is nothing for a long time. Then the monosyllables of stiltspear gently.

-It is where the other clans hunt. They do not want us.

-But you must. If you do not go you will see what the men will bring. The clans must come together and hide.

-We hide. When the men come we shall be trees.

-It will not be enough. The men will make the land dry. They will cover your village.

The stiltspear look at him.

-You must go.

They will not.

In the next days Judah chews his fingernails. He eats with the stiltspear and watches them and heliotypes their activities and notes them, but with a waxing sickness he feels now that it is for their remembrance.

-There have been fights, they tell him when he demands to know of their wars. -We fought another clan three years ago and many of us were killed.

Judah asks how many and the stiltspear holds up its hands-this one has seven fingers on each-opens and closes them and holds up one more finger. Fifteen.