Bruco had for too long now been set to guarding the camp. As important as that was, to guard a sorcerer’s camp, and not withstanding that Bruco’s own wife and child resided within that wondrous camp, he remained anxious, anxious that his leader had not returned, and anxious to be off. As much as he loved being near his son, what kind of man stayed home when there is a war to fight?

Granted it was a curious war, being waged as it was by sorcerers seeking to best one another in the bending of Time and the gathering of souls to their weird causes. Bruco had long loathed sorcerers, equating them as he did with Muslims, and, least of all, the groveling God-beseeching fools who had prayed for the conquistadors and their foes! The only thing that had ever really rankled him about Don Cortez was the great man’s tolerance of these pious hypocritical busybodies. But the sorcerer he now served was like no other, least of all some kneeling Muslim or blubbering book-bearer going on and on about his slain son-of-a-god.

The youthful sorcerer who Bruco served claimed to bend Time on behalf of all ‘Natural People,’ being those lost races such as Bruco’s who had fallen before the weapons and the wiles of the Christians of Spain and the other wicked dens from whence there kind had set sail on the Ocean Sea.

Bruco had always, since his distant youth, chosen his own leaders. His mother, Tapalma of Fire-island, had taught him this; that weak men were chosen by their leaders, and that the strong chose their own leaders. He had not forgotten, and had left his scheming master for Don Cortez in Cuba when he was but 19 rainy seasons old. It had now been 22 years since then as the heart beats, but countless seasons as reckoned by the sorcerer’s craft.

He stood above the sorcerer’s trail, where the crazed multitudes of Dwellers beyond the Sunset hurried in their horseless carriages. Her voice echoed within him, “Vision, courage and determination are the ways of the chief. Follow no other Bruco.”

With that her long flowing hair and the determined love in her eyes faded from his inner vision and he was left to consider his plight in this land of sorcerers.

Once in the land of Flowers he had awaited oblivion, waited to be the last man of his kind to draw breath, far from his native land. Then came Prester Charles, tall, brown, weak, and yet good; a man worth dying for, even if a sorcerer. Prester Charles was a Time-bending sorcerer who commanded a demon, and sought a redskin sorcerer. When the redskin sorcerer was found he turned out to be a damaged boy, known as Three-Rivers, who Bruco adopted as his Little Cacique. Bruco and the others who campaigned under the Spanish conquistadors such as Davilla, Cortez and Soto named the native red-skin chiefs ‘cacique’ after the custom of the Taino, and the habit had stuck with him, even into this bustling afterworld.

Eventually, having come to Sunset to reside and study with Prester Charles, Bruco and Little Cacique had found themselves betrayed by those sorcerers who had pretended to serve Prester. This resulted in Bruco spending some time in a Turkish prison—and he had always hated the men of Mohamed—where he murdered his way into solitary confinement.

Then, one sunless day, the ‘pull of Time’s tide’ got hold of his guts and drew him fourth. He had travelled through the folds of Time thrice before and knew the sensation well. He imagined himself rescued from that vile stone den of ass-pokers by Prester. But, lo and behold, as he emerged into the sunlight of a primal land, he had stood before Little Cacique and a small nation of redskin savages.

He learned then that Little Cacique had stolen the Secret of Time from the Sorcerers of Sunset. As a boy himself, Bruco had long ago defied the masters of his own world, albeit the small one of Exile Island. Now, finding himself in league with a prodigy of a sorcerer, no less one who had freed him and knew the self-same enemies, Bruco then swore his life to Three-Rivers. Many a conquistador would have laughed at Bruco serving this whimsical youth of a Cacique. But Don Cortez, he would understand, for he knew the power of the mind to overcome, had known that Malinche—but a pretty redskin girl—would bring him victory.

A cold chill seemed to travel up his spine and out through the top of his head as the sun dipped below the far horizon. This made him wonder if he was being sought by a sorcerer—perhaps Little Cacique. He steeled himself as it occurred to him that they were hunted by beings he could scarcely understand—though they came dressed in flesh. Flesh, however, was something he could combat.

Bruco walked down off the overlook with a last glance at the river beyond the road and wondered after his leader, Well Little Cacique, I trust you are safe with your red men tonight, if indeed night is falling over the world your feet tread…