The screeching of some sort of tropical bird disturbs your slumber. You look around, confused as to when your parents bought a tropical bird. Then it hits you....you're not in your parents house. You had the bright idea to go for a walk last night and ended up going to sleep in some lady's bed. But that was all a dream, wasn't it? Folks don't just find faery-tale doors to other worlds and then go on magick quests, right? Your musings are broken by a soft laugh. Across the stone floor is a young woman with copper skin and the garb of a priestess. She smiles at you and then you remember the Lady's gifts of yestereve. You shrug your shoulders and feel the invisible weight still there. This then must be your guide. She rises and beckons you to follow her. You're in some sort of stone temple in the jungles. Many loud birds and strange carvings surround you as you hasten to catch up with your guide. As you study her clothing on the path ahead of you, a thought strikes you of just what sort of priestess she may be given your current surroundings. You catch her up and ask, "Um...are you an Az--" "Olmec, actually. Those Mayans and their Aztec children are just upstarts," she says fluidly, as if empires that fell five hundred years ago are simply a new fad she hopes will die off soon. "But," you begin. "Come on now, see a wonder," she taunts, her green eyes flashing. She runs up to the top of the hill and points. "Behold, the greatest city of the valley!" You look out over the valley and see only a lake and some swamps. You feel a bit trippy for asking but you do anyway, "Um...What city?" She gestures as if to take in the whole of the lake and most of the valley. "Teotihucan, Tenochtitlan, or 'Mexico City' as your people call it." "What?" Now you're well confused. She explains, "Oh it is not yet there, Wanderer! Many years shall pass until the city lives there again. Somewhen your people will come to these shores over a land bridge and settle. They will build a great civilization that will fall when a volcano buries their communcation and economic center they build on that lake called Teotihucan. Thus will the Mayan Empire fall. Then their grandchildren will build another city and call it Tenochtitlan and themselves the Aztecs. Then more of your people will come in boats and there will be much war. Your people will bring much heartache to this land upon which we shall not dwell. You personally are no more responsible for those things than I am responsible for the human sacrifice which my people will one day practice." You're starting to get the hang of this ignoring logic and grasping at straws trick. You ask, "Soooo, what time is this?" "Time as you know it has not been invented yet. You come from a part of your world where time is linear. The concept has not yet been invented in the world in which we stand. The birth by which your people fragment their dates has not yet happened. Or it happened so very long ago. It depends upon your outlook doesn't it?" You find yourself nodding although why you're not sure. She takes your hand, "Come now, there is something you must see." She leads you down the hill and into a cave. You hear the sounds of string music. As you both round a corner, you spy a woman playing a trapezoid-shaped stringed instrument with small wooden hammers. She glances up and smiles when you enter, her bright green eyes lighting her face, but does not cease her rhythmic carress of the strings. Your guide smiles with pleasure. She says in time with the music, "Ah, I remember this vision. I had a vision that I saw myself and you enter into here three days ago." Your confusion is beginning to return. "So, are we in the past or did you see the future?" She favours you with a Cheshire Cat smile and answer, "Yes." You give up. The answer to 'yes what?' would probably make less sense than the answer to the past/future query. She tells you firmly, "You ask to many questions. Live your life without seeking to understand and explain every tiny thing. Dance with mystery and sleep in its embrace. But enough of that. What do you think of the salterio?" "The what?" "The salterio I'm playing over there," she answers. You look and it looks like a hammer dulcimer with a handle on the top. You've never commented on a hammer dulcimer before. "Um, is it related to the hammer dulcimer?" "Yes, and your quest. You must learn the craft and lore of this salterio so that you make take them back to Maria in the village you passed thru and give her joy and music." You ask, "What then is its lore?" She gifts you with a small smile. "It was first crafted in the land of the bullfighters 1000 years before your birth--" "Millenial Spain?" "Yes, and its styles and playing spread from the pharoahs to the bullfighters and then were brought to my land by your people in boats." "The Spanish?" "Yes, they brought music with them in their boats where their hot-when-fast, romantic-when-slow styles mixed with the Native musics to produce the better of music you may have heard at Chi-Chi's or finer Mexican Restaurants." You shake your head in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the fractals in this guide's ability to verbally step out of time and then make modern references without seeming to realize the contradiction. You ask, "What must I do?" Looking around, your guide has disappeared and only the instrumentalist version remains and it is she who answers your query. She smiles, "You must sit here and learn what skill is mine to teach. Then you must follow the trail back thru your concept of time and place until you find the Great Mother of this line." You sit and begin to wonder about all the places you'll go.