They say you cannot cross the same Shatun twice.

The land was treacherous and mercurial. It did not hold still. Hills sank in a day. Rivers rose where desert was. You could fall asleep in a lush oasis and wake among stones that remembered the ocean.

Most travellers went the long way around, even if it took weeks. Crossing Shatun took days – if you survived. There was only one way through, with a Shatun warden. They lived at the edges of the land, watching it, charging dearly, promising nothing.

I crossed not because I wanted to, but because I was commanded. Kings are fond of straight lines.

Chang, my warden, took my payment without a word. We prayed before the crossing. I looked back one last time at civilisation – its houses bright, untroubled – and followed him into the blur.

Where the ground forgets

The land shifted around us like a changing mind. Green grass turned into black sand, cherry trees bloomed against snow walls, sunlight broke through a sudden shower. Whenever I turned, the ground behind us was already different, our footprints erased, the land refusing them.

Looking ahead was no help. The horizon dissolved, hidden by fog, glare, or drifting sand.

“Stay close,” Chang said. “If you stray, I cannot find you.”

I watched how he walked. Sometimes he strode forward with certainty. Sometimes he tested the ground with small, careful steps. Sometimes he stopped altogether, staff planted, as if listening to something beneath sound.

Once we stood so long that I was sure we were lost.

I remembered stories then, of men who’d entered Shatun and were found centuries later, unmarked by time, still searching for home.

“Is it true?” I asked.

Chang nodded once. “Some stay.”

That first night, the land offered us a clearing. Trees towered above us, insects singing, somewhere a distant bird call. We made a small fire. Though it had only been a day, my head swam, as if part of me lagged a step behind the rest. For a moment, I wondered if we’d already crossed into the spirit lands.

Chang pressed a bowl of hot porridge into my hands.

“Eat,” he said. “It will bring you back to yourself.”

Rainbows across the night sky, unmoored from rain or sun, dancing to an unheard melody.

Paying the price

On the third day, we crossed a swamp that hardened into stone. Chang stopped so suddenly that I nearly collided with him. He drove his staff into the ground as if planting himself into the earth.

“Hold your ground,” he said urgently. “Show no fear.”

Wolves emerged from the fog. Two, then more, until there were six. They were enormous, coats white as snow, eyes burning red with inhuman intelligence.

My legs froze.

The wolves advanced.

Chang stepped forward.

They stopped.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the lead wolf lowered its head, its gaze fixed not on Chang, but on me.

I felt pressure then. Not malice, but attention. As if something were being weighed.

“He only wishes to pass,” Chang said.

The lead wolf took a step closer. The world narrowed. I could no longer feel my hands.

Chang did not turn. “Hold,” he said. “Or it will take more than it should.”

I did not know what he meant. I only knew that something in me was loosening, like a knot being worked at.

The wolf’s breath on my leg. There was no pain, only a brief sense that something small but important had been lifted away.

Then the wolves stepped back.

One by one, they withdrew, slipping into the fog without sound. The lead wolf lingered last. It looked at Chang, then at me, as if to mark us. Then it turned and was gone.

My legs gave way. I collapsed to the ground, shaking. Chang knelt beside me and held out his canteen. His hand trembled once before it steadied.

“They are done,” he said.

I drank. The water tasted metallic.

“What did they want?” I asked.

Chang stood. “Balance,” he said. Then, after a pause, “And payment.”

We made camp early that day.

The pathless

On the fifth morning, the horizon returned. Flat green fields stretched outward, the sky so close it seemed within reach, the sun warm on my fingers.

“This is where we part,” Chang said.

I bowed. “How did you know the way? I never saw a path.”

Chang smiled then, just the once. “There was no path,” he said. “Only walking.”

He turned and walked back toward Shatun, his figure dissolving into the mist.

I stood there for a moment, then chose a direction and began.

This story is inspired by Antonio Machado’s poem “Proverbios y cantares (XXIX)”, often translated as “Traveler, there is no path.”.