Those years I had dreams for the tribe. In my reveries I saw houses of warm, white stone, erected at the top of an ivory mountain, where a little plateau would hold us all and we would not die from the cold, as my ancestors had died, nor from hunger, as died my older stillborn sister, a few years before I was born.

We would use the Fire and the Thunder to drive away the Black Miasma that killed Enui and filled her heart and his lungs with decayed pustules. Mother would sleep placidly over a mull and warm skin, her flesh full and rosy, and my father would attentively gaze at the rivers guarded by a neverextinguishing fire.

But when I woke up, I always found myself shivering from the coldness of an astray gust of wind that had entered by the little holes that always appeared in our muddy huts, no matter how throroughly Mother covered them again and again. And I found always myself looking for the warmness of my parents, and of Ji, softly snoring, calmed by the Ji-balai of Mother. But most nights it was not enough, and I left our hut with my woven blanket and went to the remnants of the great fire.

There I tried to invoke the Names that the World whispered to me, to decipher the secrets the old ghosts mockingly revealed me, knowing that I could not understand.

"Fire!" I softly shouted, wailing my arms grandiously, just to be greeted by the playful winds, or to hear the quiet laughter of the foxes in their dens.

"Wind! I am Li! The old rain!"

And when I grew tired, I could only look at my palm and whisper sadly to my old friend. "Fire," and see the little flame that didn't hurt me, but wasn't big enough even to light my surroundings, and was limited to start little fires. How far away was I from my dreams!

Inside me, a profound desperation grew, and I wanted to cry.

But that night, the first night we slept at the plateu in that nameless mountain, there was someone looking at me; Ji, my little brother. He had awoken some time before I did, and saw when I left, so he followed me and saw me from the shadows of the huts. When I was looking at the little flame in my hands, he approached me and said kindly to me:

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"Brother. What did you dream?" And I tried to hide from him my misty eyes extinguishing the little fire. But the starry sky and the solitary moon illuminated his big grey eyes that looked at me with that profound pride and admiration. And for a moment, I thought I understood a little of the secrets the old ghosts told me, and I trembled. For a second I felt the throes of the future, and the inmenseness of time. For a second I saw Ji as I was old and older than the eras, his gaze an instant feeble and weak in the eternity. And I felt that I would lose him, and forget his name in the rivers, not to be uttered again by anyone.

So I told him. Told him of my dreams. Of the ivory mountain and our tribe, that would be a bustling city. Not a city, but an empire! A vast tribe where the huts where made of stone and there were so many people there existed people one did not know! Of the absense of illness and hunger. And I told him of the Names the world ushered to my heart, and of the silence. Some tears were streaming down my face, but Ji said;

"Do you want to summon the winds, brother? Well then observe me!"

And he left bobbing to a little mound, and extended his arms and dictated:

"Winds! I am Ji! The grass that moves the world! And I command you to come and blow away those rivers!"

Obviously, the wind didn't came, but Ji kept on going, and approached the dead great fire.

"Fire! Wake up and illuminate this night to a day! And cook me some rabbit!"

Then he approached the stones and said:

"Stones! Make me a seat, as I am tired and my buttocks hurt from the leaves!" Then, appearing to have heard something, he dissaprovingly looked to the side and said:

"And you, trees! Stop laughing and grow me some fruits! Mother likes redberries!"

And he approached me, and waving and bobbing his arms at me, he commanded,

"Li! My brother! I am Ji, and I order you not to cry!"

And I started laughing while I still cried. We were so young and the world was too vast. The solitude was too big. And he approached me even more and took me by the hand and said.

"Li, show me the great Fire."

So I embarassedly whispered the Name, and the little flame lit up and licked my brothers fingers.

"It doesn't hurt. It's warm, and it feels like you do." and smiled at me. "The dreams you have, they are good dreams, brother.

"One day, I know, we will leave the sierra, and find our mountain. And you are going to hold all the Names upon this world. So we won't have to suffer again, Li." And he looked attentively at me while I felt for the first time so clearly the rivers of time, and the secrets of the world. But they didn't matter. I stepped closer and hugged him.

One day I would hold the Name, and discover the Might that accompanied it. But Ji was never going to be there to see it.