Ulduk Penney stood on a ledge of black, smooth rock jutting from the African mountain. Far to his left, thin wisps of gray smoke drifted from a jagged peak which stood dark against the sky like a testament to the night refusing to yield to the sun. To his right, the mountains continued as far as his eyes could see, fractal-like rows of multicolored shards - some white or gray with snow, some black or brown with rock, some green or yellow with trees, some purple or red with flowers. Below stretched a long valley with Oortou in one end and a collection of tents in the other. Ulduk marveled at how tiny everything looked; the roads were tan colored hairs running down a green face. Farms were small freckles; the city itself a golden eye looking down at the encamped Goths in fear. I have been this high before. I once stood on another mountain just as I am now. I thought I was on top of the world. Then too, I saw smoke. He remembered that day, the day he reached the crest of the Tygard Highlands.

  It had been his eighteenth birthday. His parents were probably holding a birthday party for him back in Wismer. He'd felt a tinge of guilt–but then looking out at the earth below, knew it was all worth it. Great and profound thoughts swelled inside him. He felt that by merely standing upon this lofty peak, he was gaining knowledge. Wisdom. Power. If he let his mind continue, it seemed he might gain all of the knowledge of Earth. The wisdom grew and grew, boiling inside of him, filling every space, every pore of his body with self-assurance. And then, suddenly, it was gone, and he was left with an unbearable urge to scream the number ‘42.’

  This he did, for all of the creatures and gods that might be listening to the lone journeyer on the cold, rock-strewn peak. Then he trembled, looking down once more to survey the valleys and hills far below. Everything was so small, so minute, so… so trivial! He could hold out his hand and grasp the entire holdings of the Tygard in his palm. The Aketi River ran along the base of the mountains like a tiny thread. A dense jungle blanketed the earth to the south. To the east, smoke rose from a distant marshland.

  Smoke? The image caught the young Ulduk off guard. He strained his eyes to see the incredible distance. Those are the Amono Marshlands! And they’re burning! He remembered the thrill of exploring those same swamps as a child, hopping from bush to bush to avoid the spots of quicksand. He remembered the frogs and crickets, the rope bridges and intricate waterways. The rare lilies with white sails and pink centers. The fat catfish slumbering lazily in the shallow ponds. Can a swamp burn? It’s so waterlogged! Surely, this is a trick of my eyes. But the longer he watched, the more he knew it was no trick. The swamp burns, but the Aketi are unable to put it out. I must find out what is going on. Perhaps there are enemies on the way? Someone must be warned! And so, Ulduk climbed down the mountain, racing home to tell his parents what he'd seen. There is a law of physics stating that a trip returning home always takes less time than a trip leaving home. This was never truer than when Ulduk rushed down the hills, aided by gravity and a fear of what might be happening to the Amono Marshlands and his childhood village of Aketi.

  While his parents had been worried sick about him, they didn't seem to care at all about the smoke.

  “Smoke, eh?” said his dad. “I wouldn't worry about it. There hasn't been much news from Aketi recently. There never is.”

  “Such a boring place, that swamp was,” added Louri. “Or do you miss Aketi? There's some leftover cake in the cupboard for you if it'll help.”

  “But why is it smoking? There was smoke everywhere… it went for miles.”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say they’re burning down some swamp brush to make tillable land.”

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  “Tillable? How could someone till a swamp?”

  “It's fairly common, Ulduk. The swamp is drained–often digditchers are hired to do that part–and then the farmers burn off the vegetation. Swampland is rich in nutrients for crops, once all the water is out of the way. You could grow enough yams in a year to feed an army.”

  Ulduk was furious. “But, my forts! My climbing trees! For yam farms?”

  His dad chuckled. “Now, now, Ulduk. Swamps are very dangerous. I know you had fun running around in them as a kid, but that doesn't help the real world. They need to be tamed, cultivated. Innocent people die in them there swamps, but farmland… farmland will make our tribe great.”

  “But there are animals in the swamp. Where will they live if it's burned and drained? Why do the farmers think they can destroy their homes?”

  “Ulduk, calm yourself,” chastised Louri. “There are plenty of wetlands along the Amono. The animals will move, find a new home.”

  Ulduk knew he could not change his parents' minds, but they could not change his either. What the farmers were doing to the wetlands was wrong, this he was certain. I will learn everything I can about the swamps. If there is any way to save them, any way to prevent this meaningless destruction, I will find it. Surely there are crops that can be grown in a wetland, or lands that can be farmed without such devastation as the swamps endure.

  I did not stay long, Ulduk recalled. This time, I said goodbye to my parents for good. I moved back to Aketi and enrolled in school, researching the wetlands and taking courses on water biosystems. Even my classmates though I was crazy. While they left town on the weekends to party in Tygard or Khandou, I foraged through the swamps, collecting microbes, pressing ferns, documenting the life cycle of frogs and plankton. I spent those years learning everything I could about swamps, trying to understand how they came to be and why they were being destroyed. My studies paid off. I soon understood how important they were to the biosphere, how so many other species depended on them. I learned how dangerous it was to convert wetlands to farmland, how the land was irreversibly destroyed from erosion and soil degradation. But few understood me. My colleagues, friends, even my family ridiculed my work. I was nicknamed 'Swamp Hugger'. Those were terrible days, seeing the damage being done to such beautiful lands, while I myself was torn apart and abused by my peers.

  Thinking of those years made Ulduk shudder. He'd spent more and more time hiding from people and retreating to swamps, until he left school and traveled the land making maps of different wetlands and documenting their flora and fauna. His travels eventually brought him far south, to the dense swamps running from the Oueme to the Umkarum. It was in those swamps that he at last met people like himself. They took him in as one of their own, encouraging him, helping him. Both the Arush and Emin tribes, whose people dwelt so deep in the swamps that they treated the watery depths as extensions of themselves, befriended him. The vast majority had never even left the swamps, knew nothing about the ways of the northerners who lived in plains and forests, those northerners who saw swamps only as terrible, vermin infested habitats too shallow to be waterways and too deep to be cities.

  At last Ulduk saw he was not alone in the world; that his ideas were not crazy and his dreams were not in vain. He resolved to put to use all he'd learned, and stand up for what he believed, speaking for the waters and creatures which had no voice. Thus he traveled both north and south giving lectures and workshops on how to care for the swamps. He formed an organization and scheduled meetings so that all could learn from one another. Its mission was to increase and promote an open-minded understanding of swamps, so that they might be embraced in their own right, rather than feared and destroyed. Many southerners and even a few northerners joined, though there was no shortage of protesters and critics.

  What was that thing called? Did we succeed, or was it all a waste? And how did I end up buried in Sped Swamp? He frowned. How long was I buried? I spent my life traveling this land… but now nothing looks familiar. The cities have changed, the roads have changed, even the people have changed. What has happened to me… or it? Ulduk couldn’t remember, so he turned away from the valley and continued to climb the mountain. He was leaving the swamps farther and farther behind, but the memories seemed to come back to him as he climbed. If he had to reach the frozen, snow covered peak to recover his life, then he would. Climb on. Climb on.