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Christiane LaQuandra Simone du Von Gotth sat timidly on the carriage ride. She fiddles with her fine green dress, tugging at the tight collar and re-crossing her legs under her small and thin green dress. All in trying to find more comfort. She sighs, pulling her thin arms out of the long sleeves of the plush jacket, shaking the poofy lace wrists, now more akin to soaked washcloths, and then dabbing her dripping wet face. Her hair, usually shining with a pale white yellow hue, is now a damp white and honey colored mess on her head. Christiane has premature graying, inherited from her father, and she praises Jesus for such a fine crown. Whilst her friends, gentleman and lady, fuss with their white powdered wigs, all she has to do is simply lay a puff of powder, and just wait for the next few years to turn her hair a yellowish-white. “Lucky" they call her, for what she always had, which she fussed over like a aristocratic lady. But ladylike was normal for her.

At the tender age of 20, Christiane has graduated from her schooling in ancient history, and wishes to become a doctor. Thanks to the influence of her father, she has been able to pursue such a career and demand respect from her peers. Her pursuit of archeology as a woman was called “unladylike." But as she learned from her father, what a society believes in one era does not always hold true for reality, nor for that very same society in the past or future. Was not Joanne of Arc a hero of her motherland? It should be added that obese women were once seen as the absolute of beauty, and Europeans used to wield boomerangs as weapons. She rejects her friends who spend hour 'pon hour in the coffee houses, spoiled brats with the world on the silver platter, arguing there is no God because they hate the church and are rebelling against their ideas of an “old man in the sky."

Christiane feels there must be more to it than simply what Austria says, even what Rome says. Maybe rejecting the church alone does not mean everything is just what you can touch. Why, have they not realized how short ago it was that such a thing as “germs" were discovered, and was argued to never exist because they could not be touched, tasted, seen, smelled or heard? And when one argued of proof, the nay-sayers yet just found another twist or turn to try to argue it down. Basically, rampant denialism paraded as “seeking the truth." Just like those Americans who claim Europe has always been the top of human achievement, when all the proof says otherwise. At one time, the negro was the most powerful group on Earth, and so was the Asian, and the Aborigine. After swimming through the littered rocks of archaeology, one can only come away with one absolute truth: humans have been the epitome of humanity. While one group rules, another is down, and the rulers fall while the ruled rise to rule. Her father once said: “History is like the ocean. Every wave rising up is a civilization. And every second is 100 years. They rise here, and here, and here. And there, and there, and there. And then they fall. And those flat areas of water rise into waves. And so it went, and so it goes, and so it will go."

Christiane has always asked “why?" And “what?"

More. There has to be more than just what the 5 senses perceive. Knowledge is salt water, no matter how much you drink, you only starve for more. And she is ever thirsty.

“This damnedable heat..." she sighs, dabbing her dripping face with the cloth. All of her makeup has since dripped off and runs down her neck to stain her soft green collar with flesh and pink colored splotches. Her lovely long ponytail hangs like a damp ragged towel down her back, and her bangs hang in wet ragged locks down her face, only accentuating her already white eyebrows and plump red lips.

Christiane's father is a renown historian. Egyptologist to be exact. Another one of the great scholars who studied the ancient Greek and Roman historians who claimed the Egyptians to be negroes, and thus proof for the dark skin = cursed by G0d theory held by the church, as false. “Another nail in their coffers' coffins!!" he would bark gleefully, rousing his friends into a toast. That fanatical “Mark of Cain" issue. It's the source of the fanatical hang-ups and emotion-fueled fighting that fight against any idea of negroes being anything more than slaves or servants ever in history. If this “accursed" race could do such fine works, then this stands as another nail against the church's claims. The unwrapped mummies look identical to dead and dried Somalians, the hieroglyphs look identical to the common woman and man walking through the streets of Eritrea and Somalia. As well as the face of the Hor-Em-Akht, or the sphynx. And all the same hair styles, faces, eyes, and looks of the people of Eritrea. Do such ancients still walk among us? That they came up the Nile from Cush, or Ethiopia, and conquered the land, is this so impossible? Have not the Romans did same to the Gauls? And now, the British and French do same to the world? And if so, what can we gleam from these still living ancients? And if more, then just how much doth the church keep from the halls of science? So many questions. So damnedable ** many…**

The young anthropologist decided she would follow in the footsteps of her heroes, such as Amerigo, and travel the world to find answers. Not to simply dig, but to delve. To swim through the buried depths and dive through the leagues of the sea called history. Find the artifacts. Find remnants. Seek what the natives know. What proof is there of what they say? And what will it mean to the future of humanity? Is this not the age of enlightenment? Of science?

Christiane's father was content for his daughter to write, study the works of others, and hopefully settle down with a good French aristocrat and become a wife of a professor.

But she could never do such, she could never see herself doing that.

She had to travel the world, to SEE for herself. She would never be content to sit in a coffee house with a pack of spoiled adults rebelling against any authority figure they believed was there. Mama, papa, professor, Father, church, the government, G0d, Jesus, the ancestors, the law, anything really. Why, Christiane surmised, that if the church banned worship of G0d, most of those opposing all religion would then be as fiercely theist as they are atheist. Should they not follow those with a more plausible and neutral reason for their own Atheism? Or perhaps, their Theism?

And what of the natural development of the flesh? Surely not all animals have remained the same for so long. Maybe, one day, some bright student like herself will be born who will rise up and push forward for evolution. Maybe some day. But as for right now, as for Christiane Von Gotth, she had to...go beyond.

After enough pleading, begging, arguing, and debating, she finally convinced her father to fund her trip to the dark continent. Her greatest thirst was to follow the trail of the Arab travelers who returned with story of the great kingdom of Wagadou, the knights, and of course...their god, Bida the Black Snake. But this meant traveling to what is now to the Malian borders of Mauritania, homeland of the Moors.

Packing her lightest and hardiest clothing, she never imagined this place would be so damnedably hot. The trip via ship was rather unpleasant and dull. And she heard the captain call her a “filly" more than once when he thought the young scientist wasn't listening. And Christiane did admire herself naked in the mirror. At 5 foot 6 inches tall, she was small. And when she did undo her long hair, and push it up, she always did notice how lovely her face was.

Once the ship docked, Christiane and her fellow two peers, a young German ethnologist, and a fellow Frenchman, were both heading to central Mauritania, what was once the glorious African empire of Wagadou: a place that was not unlike the stories of knights and princesses, albeit with dark skin, more gold, and with Islam instead of the Christ. Not to mention that...black snake god.

Back home, to even say it's name...Bida...filled her with a heaving interest and excitement to delve into a unknown kingdom of people, lords, ladies, beliefs, laws, and origins. A excitement like finding an Atlantis. But now? IN Mauritania… it gives her the creeps.

The carriage was a nicely made gift to the Berber driver and his family, given to them from who knows, who knows when. It looked old, maybe built 20 years ago. But it obviously made him a nice living, as it has been kept up with the utmost tedious hands, redecorated in a manner like something between Spanish, Arabic, and Senegalese. The man was a Berber, and defied what some of the Englishmen argued about Berbers. His skin was black as soot, and his face looked Somali. He wore a turban on his head, and cloth hung down like a hammock below his chin. He had crooked, shoddy teeth, a long straight sword on his side, and a son who rode alongside him that looked like the sons of white and black marriages. Without a doubt, the mother was of European heritage. A massive old camel pulled the carriage as he lazily plodded down the dirt road. The son played on a mahogany flute, filling the air with a tune one could mistake for the low and slow tempo songs of slaves from the Virginia colony. Mayhaps to the Americans, it was under appreciated, unsurprising for those brute backwater colonist savages… but France, the homeland of intellectual pursuit, found intrigue in such things.

Josef Werner, the German fellow, and Paul Stonewall, sat across from Christiane in the carriage. Josef had almost stripped himself, suffering from the heat. And Paul seemed relegated to keep his soggy, suffering dignity.

When they arrived at their destination, a large square sand and wood building turned, into a rather lovely hotel one would expect from a castle made of sandstone, stood proudly in the sun. It has black iron and gorgeous wood decorating the doors and windows, while African men who look identical the stone sculptures of the Mauretanian horsemen who allied with the Romans, sit upon stools talking the day away. The carriage stops, letting those passengers ever so joyful to get out and into some cooling wind, free. Josef pays the carriage driver, who responds by smiling his crooked tooth smile and nodding, giving thanks in Arabic with a Dogon accent, and then driving away. The street looked to be white sand, and more pristine and clean than any street they had ever seen. Small dainty women in long dresses and hadjibs, or with their hair in long lovely braids more gorgeous than anything any of the Westerners had ever seen, walked up and down the street with baskets. Men walked donkeys loaded down with goods to and fro. On the corner, a group of men sat on the ground playing lively, rhythmic music as a absolutely stunning girl spun and whipped in a sensual ballet. Josef could hardly keep his jaw closed.

“Don't get any ideas!" laughed a gruff, older voice. They turned to see a stereotypical looking Frenchman, like someone one would expect from a stereotypical cartoon, standing in the doorway. He wore a white turban, a thin moustache, and a thin, long shirt that hung down to his feet like a robe.

“Professor DePaul!" they scream, like little children happy to see their father who was away at sea.

“That is a boy." he mumbles, shambling out of the large square building.

“WHAT?!" mumbles Josef.

“That lovely, dark skinned beauty you see dancing with her long smooth thighs out?"

“Oui?"

“That's a “he". And if you go over there, you may end up in some form of marriage contract, so keep walking. GWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

“Ohhh..." Josef groans, looking embarrassed.

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Inside the boarding house, the rooms were like white stone squares fit with a bed, a small table, and a rug on the floor. The head of the hotel was a man reminiscent of some Moorish paintings. A black face framed by a blue turban and long Arabic clothing, he seemed in a rather mellow and uncaring conversation with DePaul. The man held up an abacus, as he drolled on in in Arabic with no sense of emotion or soul, in spite of DePaul's passionate and infuriated demeanor.

Christiane closed her wooden door, sliding her hand against solid brick that felt like stucko and sand. She promptly ripped her soggy, sloshy clothing off, disappointed that her finery was too wet and sloshy to be any good. She ripped off her stockings, which were now more like socks dipped in water than fine tights. Now completely nude, Christiane stretched and sighed in intense relief, feeling the dry windy air blow-dry her sweat soaked body. A fresh bowl with African zig-zag designs on it, sat in his room, filled with fresh water and a folded linen cloth next to it. Surely, this must be quite the fine place.

She refreshed herself, finally hearing DePaul behind the door losing his cool. He barked and fissed in Arabic, slinging filthy curse words. The only response was the slow and lazy clickity-clack_s of the abacus, and a a dull and drolling response of nothing but facts, figures, numbers, expenses, costs, _et cetera.

A pair of sighs, and the sound of paper, signaled the end of the discussion. A angry DePaul plopped his 160 pounds down hard on a wooden stool. Christiane looked on her bed to find a broad brim hat, and a long Arab style dress – covering to keep the heat off her skin, warm in the cold, yet cool in the heat. She did not want to dress like the Moors, but...damn. It was TOO hot.

She sighed in defeat, laying her case of clothing on the bed and locking it with a small chain before donning the loak white robe. She tentatively holds the widebrim hat, that reminds him of a lady's sunhat. Opening the door, she sees her fellows dressed in dry new European finery. Josef wears broken down set, like skintight undergarments, and the fluffy wrist and collar. But that's it. He reminded Christiane of a Portuguese from the past.

“Quite the discussion." she smiles at her former professor, her personal hero, her “dad" that wasn't her dad, and the man who encouraged her to hunt the lost civilizations and kingdoms of Africa due to the wealth of them, still unknown. Like Nok, a land like an Atlantis where men wielding iron, riding white stallions, and white sand streets filled with giant statues existed when the ancient Greeks were just learning to make bronze.

“Greedy bastard Soninke." DePaul mutters.

“Professor?"

“Remember when I taught you how the Soninke often ran the tax guilds on the silk road?"

“Yes. Why?"

“The shrew bastards haven't changed. Money grubbers will find any teeny tiny little mathematical reason to raise prices."

“Is there a problem?" Paul asks, trying to straighten a fresh wig on his head.

“Non, non. But take that off, or you'll pass out from heatstroke."

“Huh?"

“Wear a hat to keep your scalp and head cool."

“That's a sun hat! For women!"

“Trust me, they don't know the difference. And I wear one, you'll come to love them as much as a cold drink of water."

“But professor..."

“Paul."

“Uhhh...yes sir."

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The day had been long, but exciting. DePaul had uncovered a dig site of a lost town from the kingdom of Wagadou in southeastern Mauritania, on the Mali border. And after he showed his 3 beloved former students what he expected of them, they began to go about the entire task. Of course, Christiane was the most fluent in Arabic and even learned a little Dogon from hounding DePaul like a dog after a steak. It was all so exciting for her.

She expected some problems from the native men, whether it be lusting after a white woman, or that she wasn't dressed in a burka. Oddly enough, and a little disappointingly, nobody even looked at her twice. None of the men even showed an inch of attraction or interest in her, which ended up hurting her inside feelings. She left from fear and trepidation of being around so many black native Muslims, to being disgusted that none of them even gave her so much as a smile. It reminded her of that old Roman description of “the stoic and terse African style." They were stoic, and could be quite terse. Wasn't she attractive? Wasn't she a lovely woman, regardless of color? Or nationality?

Josef helped DePaul while Christiane and Paul went about the business of interviewing and jotting down what they could from the natives. Often, a local professor specializing in history and folklore. The man ran a library which not only held ancient medieval parchments locked away in closeted rooms, but also had written several books himself. He was a unending well of Islamic and medieval knowledge, but when it came to that before Islam, and that before the Mali empire and the Moor empire, the man seemed to tread shallow. He knew little. But what he did know was what “repositories" for such info did exist. And he banned the 2 young scholars from seeking it.

After 2 more days of pushing, Paul finally got the man to open up about a woman in the back areas who would know. Her grandfather was a griot, a bard who was a living library of information and could remember even the most minute detail. This was a big deal, as only those people with the mind and talent to go through the mind-melting schooling could become one. And the lady was said to have inherited her grandfather's mental ability. Except...she was a witch.

By that evening, as the Mauritanian sun splashes the sky orange over the Mali border's tall white pyramids, the 4 anthropologists sit inside a small African bar eating soup and meat. The building is filled with music an American would immediately mistake for Delta Blues, except the guitar and words are Arabic. It's a strange, yet addictive melody. A recipe invented around 1100 AD, 600 years before any American slave even knew the word “blues."

DePaul downed his soup with gusto, making eyes at the giggly 17 year old girl who could easily just waltz in Paris and become a model overnight. Here, though? She was merely the kitchen chef's niece, and the proprietor's daughter. Normally, the droll boring man was over protective. But for hundreds of years, poor white women from European haunts sought the marriage of Moorish men. And now, as time spins things backwards, this poor black girl could perhaps be the wealthy wife of this well-to-do Frenchman. It was no surprise the girl was dolled up in her most lovely jewelry and clothing. Unbeknowst to her or DePaul, her father hoped she'd be married off to the professor.

And the way the two flirted with one another, it just might be. What 17 year old girl didn't want to run away with a well-to-do man in his 40's? How long has it been that way? So long.

“Professor..." Christiane interrupts the shameless grins and eyebrow bouncing.

“Yes, yes, you think I'm too old, eh?"

“No, sir, I was ju-"

“Why, if I did not love all of you like my own children, I'd have no pity about admitting I am more handsome than any of my “sons." Like I'm sitting here with a hunter's duck hounds!"

The table erupts in laughter. The truth is Prof. DePaul was very strapping. His nickname back at the university was the “Courtier Killer". One stroll, and every lady fawned behind him. And he had the same sickness as many ancient Greek men of travel: a weakness for “chocolate." DePaul was divorced from his first wife, an Eritrean woman who grew infuriated that he saw her as his own little piece of living Egypt. Culture clash, and religious differences made her too difficult for even the most stalwart gentleman.

“Professor?" Christiane interrupts the guffawing. “Would it be permissible if Paul and I were to sight-see?"

“Why? Aren't you two tired? We've been working since the cock crow!"

Christiane was tired. But her intrigue and interest was too much to be ignored. All she knew was the European styles of brick streets, simple rural huts and herdsman, large grand stone and brick cities, Rome's overriding influence which misplaced Europe's native beautiful culture trying to creep back in over the edges of the locked door called Christianity.

The pristine white sand and stone streets of what was once Songhai, an empire bigger than France and boasted the world's most educated doctors and humanity's most advanced academia, it all tugged and pulled at her. She had to know more. More. More. Like drinking salt water, every sip only makes you starve for a gulp, which makes you starve for a gallon. Christiane's mind screamed with curiosity.

And so, obedience came forth.

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After 20 minutes of casually walking the now quiet streets, only the sounds of wind could be heard. Most of the white square buildings were dark inside, or had lights inside the tiny windows. The last adhan (Islamic call to prayer) was hours ago, and Christiane and Paul found a young teenager who was willing to give them a unconventional tour for some extra cash. The boy was a Dogon, a ethnic tribe in Mali and Mauritania who live in an area where they are allowed to shun the modern shackles of Medieval-post Medieval metropolitan living and Islam, and continue in what they prefer and see as a more pure, free and righteous life.

He took them outside the common things to the more empty outskirts surrounded by oceans of sand.

“I have a question..." Paul asks nervously in Arabic. The boy turns and scratches his head, slowly wrapping his hand around the scimitar handle in his cloth belt, fearing they would turn on him. He was not fond of outsiders. “We would like to see the Occultist."

The boy smiles a cocky grin and licks his lips. Very different reaction to those Paul's seen in Europe, where the rural locals may quickly fly into making the sign of the cross and shunning away.

“Why?"

“We wish to learn more.… we wish to learn what ELSE there is. What did people do in the past? Before the people knew of Islam."

That was when the boy's eyes flicker down to the ground deep in thought. His thick pink lips twist in wrestling decisions on what his next action should be. His thick black eyebrows arch up in defeat, sighing with knowing the obvious sign of his figuring out what to do and say next is proof he is not the mask he gave the two northerners.

“Unhhhh… the people have no hatred in their hearts for the prophet Jesus. For years, the shiekhs had white Christian men as guards and protectors..."

He mumbles something many don't know, of the great crusader guards who stood guard over black Moors and Malinese nobles for centuries. Muslim and Christian, united in tolerance and friendship. Black master, white servant. So alien. So unknown. So strange. Just more proof humanity is humanity, and the only true lines are nationality and one's own philosophy and tolerance. But this is old news to the two students. They already know this. They know it so well that it's boring. They want to know the shadowed and buried past of before…

“Yes, yes, we understand..." Christiane matches the boy's verbal intellectual attempt to en guard and deflect their attempts, “...but there is so much more to the people. To the Dogon. To Wagadou."

At the word Wagadou, the boy's light blue eyes in his black African face bulge in shock. His almond-shaped eyes narrow in deep thought, “What is Wagadou?"

The two students smile down at him. He's been bested in his deflections. The teen sighs again, scratching his head under his loose white turban.

“Mmmhhh….rrrrnn…...Okay! Come, come!"

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The boy secretly led them through a maze of homes and buildings, stone walls, and winding sand streets. After walking for a solid 20 minutes, Paul wondered if they were being misled and drug around as idiot foreigners. But then that they came upon a small square house made of white brick and almost-black wooden struts and beams. It reminded Christiane of a giant sandcastle with 4 straight sides, a flat top, small holes for windows, and a tiny arc for a door, covered by a wooden gate built right into the house itself and covered by a lovely cloth that looked a bastard child of African and Arab styles.

“Wait here. Just wait..." says the boy in an annoyed and don't-want-to-be-bothered fashion. He approaches the gate, and jingles the little gold bell. Literally, solid gold. Simply sitting outside, as if just any old common bell. And it bears no sign of anyone attempting to steal or take. It shocks Christiane.

The voice of an elderly woman speaks out in Dogon, obviously asking a question. The boy responds, in the same language. Obviously, an answer. She speaks once more with a tone of permission, and the boy unlatches the gate to walk right through! Paul and Christiane stand in awe, her gate is no more than a simple iron latch, an old woman by herself, with a solid gold bell at her door, in a nice little house. No dogs. No guards. No locks. Merely a cloth before her doorway. Every home has solid wooden doors with iron locks, and have had them this way since the 1300's. But the culture of this place surely is alien.

The boy disappears behind the cloth covering the doorless doorway, shaped like an arch. Inside, a dim orange glow throbs from low turned lamps. The winds blow dry and cold, giving Christiane a hard chill to her skin, which prickles while her nipples grow long and hard.

The inside of the house is silent. Only the songs of the desert, winds howling through the empty and cool emptiness. Paul struggles to hear, yet still there is no sound. Either they are unusually quiet inside, or…

The cloth drape pulls aside, and the boy appears from behind it in a hunched over fashion to exit the short doorway. Once he exits, he stands up to his full 5'8" height, and looks down as if he's been reprimanded. He opens his palm towards the doorway, signaling for the two to enter. As they approach the small perfectly square house and open the short 3 foot high gate, the boy hurries out into the night, seeming to disappear from view.

They look at one another with worry.

That's not good.

How will they get back? Especially in the cold black night?

“We've come this far," whispers Paul, “...we cannot back out now."

“Y-y-yes, of course..." Christiane stammers.

Paul opens the cloth, and hunches over to enter the 5 foot high door way.

Inside, the house is brightly lit by low-turned lamps and candles, illuminating a room and as large as a small house's livingroom. It is warm and smells of sweet spices, rather roomy, looking much bigger than one would surmise from the look of the outside. The floor is wooden planks decored by thick, clean carpets. A perfectly arching fireplace is sculpted directly into the sand and stone wall, looking like something Spanish, but with no ounce of Christian or Gothic influence. A wooden table covered by a thin carpet sits upside the wall, short and on top of a thick, plush carpet. Obviously, for sitting on the floor around it, like the Arabs do. The plain and smooth white walls hold dark wooden shelves. The ceiling is as tall as 5'7", forcing Paul's 6'2" body to crouch.

“Uh….uh, oh, um… Say-Yoo?" Paul mumbles in Dogon, Sayeuw meaning “Hello."

No sound responds.

“Wa Salaam?" he speaks in informal Arabic.

“Shoes." mumbles a elderly woman's voice in perfect French, accent and all. Inside, they look over to see a tiny white woman in a hadjib down to her neck, a shin-length skirt, and nothing else. Beautiful black flowers lay as decorative tattoos down her hands, down the spine of her back, and across her large naked round breasts. She looks completely Nordic ethnically, and no older than her mid-40's to early 50's. Her white hair is perfectly braided into a style like that of the African natives. A cowry necklace hangs from her slender neck, and her skin looks very tanned, like a American cowboy's who's been in too much sweltering sun. She wears nothing but a Mali style dress. The top of it forms a loose and comfortable looking hood for her head, as if wearing a hoodie of orange silk. And the rest of it drapes down to her ankles as if a full body dress lazily draped around in a comfortable fashion. Like the head of a beautiful German woman wearing silk in the symbolic fashion of being a Muslim woman. Stripes of black and blue tattooes run down her face in a style one would only expect of the tribal vikings. It can be seen that the braids down her back are in the Nordic style. Such a queer yet beautiful combination of features.

She frowns with a sense of disgust, looking the two up and down judgingly. They quickly remove their shoes in the doorway, walking with socked feet on the perfectly clean wood and carpets.

“You are European?" gasps Paul.

“I am who I am." she snaps curtly, and with a foul attitude.

“Apologies, Mademoiselle (Miss/Ms.), uh-"

“MAH-DAM. (Madame = Mrs.)"

“Again, I apologize." Christiane lays her arms to her sides, gripping the sides of her dress, and lowers herself like an apologizing aristocratic lady. The white haired woman looks her up and down with disdain and judgement. Christiane then immediately folds her arms in a x-shape over her breasts and lowers her head, showing respect in one of the African styles. The widow doesn't smile, but her angry expression lightens to a little less angry.

“Sit." she shooes her hand towards the table, as if commanding annoying grandchildren. The two students sit down on the floor around the round wooden table, looking at one another with wary expressions. The walls are decorated with large Ancestor masks, and those which don't hold masks are filled with shelves laden with clay pots or glass jars of….various things.

“Why do you come to me?" she says in perfect Arabic.

“Forgive me, Mrs..."

“Mahnsay."

“Mrs. Mahnsay, but are you a researcher? From Europe? France?"

“I come from Western Sahara. Are you shocked that people of the world do not match your imperial view that every location is but one race?"

“O-o-of course not! We are French! Not-not...not backwards Americans!"

“My people have been mixed for centuries. Black husbands with white wives, white husbands with black wives, Arab and non-Arab, for it is our way. The Berber way. All that matters is being Berber. Is the north too caught up in their small little chunks of land and struggling to make sound sophisticated their own tribal mountain ways to understand the obvious?!"

“We apologize, Madame." Christiane breaks in, struggling to calm the elder who slowly spirals higher and higher in her rage at foreigners. “We did not mean to insult. It's just, you're French tongue is so excellent and so eloquent, beyond even native French."

“I study. I learn. I pay attention. I have paid attention for over 90 years. I SHOULD be expert at something."

Christiane swallows hard, trying to retain a look of not being shocked at the number of years just spoken. Why, if she had not aristocratic training, she would have blurbed out that the widow did not look beyond 50, so how in the world could she ever be that age?

“I...we, WE apologize, Madame. We were disrespectful. Have mercy on us and pardon our ignorance."

“….hmf."

The woman simply goes about her roomy house with such a short and back-hunching ceiling for anyone taller than her short stature. Yet, for her, she would have to reach upward, stretching, just to touch the feiling. She's so short. Yet, in excellent shape. Even the muscles of her stomach can be seen.

“I am not...fond...of the colonist." she mumbles off-handedly in a sharp and cutting tongue, all the while not looking at them. Paul timidly rebuttons up his once loosened, open and sweaty collar. His silver cross hanging down to his chest now suddenly hid from sight.

“You come with your filth, drabbed in such thick and sweaty clothing. And your Arab Jew hanging from a tree of gore."

Christiane gasps loudly at the absolute disrespect and blasphemous words. She is certainly no clergy person, but...such blatancy! Paul coughs, silencing a chuckle.

“I am no missionary." he clears his throat, “I...er, we...we did not come for any proselytization. We came to learn."

The widow occultist squats low with the flexibility and vigor of a ballerina in her 20's, while still busily cooking and fiddling with her pots. Her back to them, as they remain sitting on the floor at the short wooden table.

“Learn...what? There's a Mosque down the road. Mali's mosques have been libraries forever, go there schoolboy."

“We did not come here to learn about Isla-"

“They teach science and law and history too. As I said, if you want schooling, go to the mosque and colleges. Why bother me? I'm just a simple old widow. What do I know? How ca-"

Paul blurts out a word, interrupting her: “Bida."

The sound of a wooden spoon clanking into a plot rings loudly. Dropped. The constant whipping and whistling sounds of the winds outside stop, leaving the black inky desert silent. Not even the sound of the night birds break the silence.

Christiane feels thumps rise from her chest up to her throat. A chill slithers up her spine.

The house becomes as silent as a convent.

The occultist whispers inaudibly: “Little child-fool…. Damned northern fool…..."

“Bida, Bida the Black Snake." Paul mutters again, looking like a curious school boy who is eyeing his teacher's back.

The woman stands up to her full height, and breathes deeply. Her hand on her chest, shuffling her braids back inside her hadjib, as if agitated.

“How?" she whispers towards the wall without turning around, “How do you know that name?"

“I study. I am...I am excited to know, we both are. The old kingdoms, and castles, and palaces, and walls...buried beneath the sands and jungles of time, we...we are dying to know more..."

“….you do not know the beast which you stalk….Frenchmen…..."

“Please, Madame Mahnsai. We which to not let the secrets of the land disappear. Please, we've come such a long way just to learn from you."

The white haired woman timidly tugs up her clothing to lift up above her ankles, and whisks across the carpet laden wooden floor to sit down at the table. In one swell motion, she lowers from standing to sitting in crosslegged, as if nothing.

“There are things which exist that your tools and measures are not yet capable or advanced enough to detect...not all stories told to children are false..."