The howling wind. That was the first thing I heard once I reached the dusty top of the mesa. I felt it shoving me back, I felt the sand clawing at my skin and the sound rattling my bones. It was all encompassing, the rest of the world blown away by it.

I was deaf and blind, but I wouldn't stop, not yet, not when I had come so far.

I took a step forward, then another one. Raise a foot, put it down. Do it with the other one.

Time lost meaning. There was only the wind, the sound, and me walking.

An unaccountable amount of time later the sand stopped scratching me and I opened my eyes.

A giant stone head stood in front of me, maybe three or four miles away. Its mouth was open and from the depth of its maw came the wind. Between me and the head, there was only smooth stone, each grain of dust, each pebble and each little imperfection blown away eons before.

What I thought had been a storm was the song forming the world.

I reached into my backpack and pulled out the rock picks. There would be no way for me to walk on the smooth rock and against the song.

I laid down and started to crawl. The last stretch of my travel had to be the epitome of humility.

And then the song ceased. I looked up and saw the rock head at my side. It was a towering monstrosity, its size defying reason.

I also saw the writing flowing over the ground and climbing up to the side of the head till it arrived at the ear and slipped inside.

I stood up, leaving the picks in the ground. I wouldn't need them anymore. I dropped my backpack, as I had no more use for it nor for its content.

I followed the stream of writing, and then I saw him. He sat on the ground, tattered clothes that had long lost their color, long hair and a wild beard falling down in an unkempt cascade. His eyes were glued on the earth in front of him where he frantically wrote in the dirt with a thin wooden stick. Beside him stood a massive, green maul.

Then he stopped writing and looked up to me. The words stopped flowing beneath my feet and I was sure the sun hung unmoving in the heavens too.

He called something out. I didn't understand, it was a language I didn't know, but then I wasn't here to talk. I put my hand on the grip of my rapier and unsheathed it, then I said, "I come from the city of Tala, which is no more for the Red Plague wiped it out. I am here to demand justice, and I shall have it."

The man rose and reached for the maul. When he gripped it, green dust trickled down from the handle. He raised the weapon as if it weighed next to nothing, and then charged.

He was fast, but I was faster. A step, a flourish, and the blade was deep in his throat.

He fell with a gurgling sound.

I took a deep breath, then looked at the unmoving writing on the ground.

I walked to where the man had been sitting, the wooden stick still there. I sat down and put the rapier at my side. I picked the wooden stick up. I passed my hand over the dirt, wiping away the last, incomplete words. And then I felt the world flowing into me. I saw the wide plains, I saw the mountains, I saw the fleets and the armies, I saw the stars behind the blazing sun and I saw the things hiding beneath the earth.

So I started to write.

I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. And each word changed everything and empires rose and fell.

Suddenly, I felt a presence. I looked up and saw somebody standing there. A woman. She was clad in strange garments, her head was shaved and there were lines drawn on her skin. I said, "Who are you and what do you want?"

She answered something in a language I didn't know, then pulled out two devices made of black metal. Pistols, I thought. I had seen them pop up in the world just recently, one or two heartbeats ago.

I sighed and reached out for my rapier. It was covered in rust.