Goats are not smart; most people know that. But goats can learn. Where we lived, there grew an afiya tree whose precious fruits bloomed way on high.

When a child would climb the afiya, he would bring down many fruits for the herd. The goats grew to anticipate this gift, and a child climbing up would find a ring of bleating goats packed around the trunk. One day, my sister Kjono--she was but six winters--she climbed the afiya and brought down only one fruit. The goats swarmed her, and when they had gone, they had eaten not only the fruit but her blouse as well. My parents thought this was the funniest thing they had seen in their days.

Today my goats learn fear. They see things no goat should ever see. They see their kin burned and battered like polu root prepared for rainday feasting. They look around and see that where there were many goats, there are now few. Now they cower against the hut, refraining from bolting only because facing the night alone is more fearsome than facing it together. For now, that is.

Chouri stands on the perimeter, and looks into the sky. The rock-thing returns on the wing, this time carrying someone in his arms. I too flew today; this is not a new thing. This one is a woman, though. She wears flowing white robes, not weathered from plains living like mine. She is from the city, where they paint their garments in grape and yellow stone. Her hair is tied in knots like a thatch weaving, all under a white and crushed-grape sunbreak.

She is young and pretty and dangerous, this one. The winged creature deposits her on the earth, and she walks to address me.

"Hello, goatherd," she says in the voice I heard in the air before the sun set. "I mean you no harm."

"You do not need to mean harm to cause harm, sorceress," I respond, showing her my frightened goats. "Dismiss your charge and show me faith. And my name is not Goatherd, it is Jojo."

"Done, Jojo." She waves a hand and the winged thing is vapor. "I am Fola, something-something of Kenlo's something-something-something. My something flew me here to get from you a something-something , which will--"

"You use many complicated words to say such simple things. You want the Yellow Rock. Everyone wants the Yellow Rock."

"Yes, the . . . um, Yellow Rock," she sighs, or maybe laughs. "If I can only get that rock and empty it, I can use it to stop a horrible dragon from attacking Kenlo."

"And you know what is in it now?"

"Well, no, but it--"

"It cannot be worse than your dragon, I know," I say. "Fola, I tell you it can be worse. When I woke up today, I thought there could be nothing worse than your dragon, which I saw on the horizon. Since then, my herd has been decimated, and your dragon is nowhere to be seen. And all of this, all of this is the doing of what is inside the Yellow Rock. So I tell you, Fola, what is inside the Yellow Rock remains in the Yellow Rock. And inside my goat. But that is my own dark star to follow."

The woman looks at me with trouble in her brow. "Your goat. All this over a goat? Look, Jojo, my city will give you a hundred goats if you just give me that one with the sickly look on its face."

"You do not understand my people, woman of Kenlo. You cannot buy my duty as a goatherd like you buy and sell jewels in the City of Cities. Now tell your sorcerous friends that Jojo, a lonely goatherd, keeps the Yellow Rock, and will continue to keep the Yellow Rock until he discovers a way to banish it forever."

"She does not need to say a word, goatboy," comes a harsh voice from the hillock beyond the monkeytree. "I am here, and your time is at an end."

Chouri barks like she has the venom. There on the hill is a withered shaman, all clad in bright robes and bones. Next stands the assassin and killer of goats, with no sign of the goat he stole from me. Behind the pair floats a ghostly presence, luminescent against the backdrop of evening. I feel a wave of evil from the hillock, but something is missing from the group. I cannot place the inconsistency, but I recognize the man.

"Bwire, I believe," I say. "I do not know you, shaman. But you and this sorceress are invited to leave this plain now, with all the hospitality of the Mtenda granted to you on your way out."

The shaman laughs. "We need talk no longer. I, and my stealer of breath, and my shadow of dusk, and all my powers, we will raze this Mtenda land, and take from you your pathetic animals. Then with the 'Yellow Rock,' as you say, we will hold cities and kings at our mercy. Starting with Kenlo, I imagine."

Fola snarls. Perhaps she feels about her city as I feel about my goats.

Chouri barks up a storm and tugs at my leg. I try to shoo my goatdog to safety, but she growls at me. At me. She has never done that before. And too late, I see the source of her distress.

The panther has returned, and it runs at my goats.

"Nooooooooo!"