Pi Pluk watched as the strange lanky figure went through the movements. Precise placement of the feet, then carefully balancing on the balls and turning a quarter turn to the left. Then there was a minute movement to the left, a re-orientation and the same quarter turn. Repeated, as it was, many times over, it had a distinctly ritualistic look; a simple but very obsessively precise dance. Every evening now for the past thirteen days Pi Pluk had been a spectator to this eccentric behaviour, seeking the answer. The answer to a question that he had posed to his mother - just how had Turning Man come to carry such an odd name. Her reply had been simple and, at the time, quite unedifying.
“Follow him when he leaves his home in the evening.”
The tone of her reply had also told him that she did not wish to be bothered by such trivia again, and Pi Pluk was wise enough to recognise that unspoken warning.
Thus Pi Pluk had followed Turning Man and each night since then he had watched from the concealment of a clump of bushes. Turning Man turned; he had hoped for something more, but it was always the same. Everyone else seemed to accept this as a total validation, no more was needed. Yet Pi Pluk sensed that there was something here to be understood, something more than a seemingly crazy dance. Certainly the eccentric behaviour suited Turning Man well, he was not normal; his shape was wrong, far too tall and thin, his skin was an odd sallow colour, his fur too sparse and his speech so high and squeaky that it was rendered nearly unintelligible. Did Turning Man perhaps have a deeper reason to pursue this strange nightly ritual ?

The evening was drawing to a close and the light beginning to fade; Turning Man ceased his gyrations and very carefully marked his position with a stone. Then he did something that was out of the ‘ordinary’, that is to say something that Pi Pluk had not witnessed in his thirteen nights of observation. He did not walk away immediately, he moved about the area scuffing the ground with his feet, the movements were tense, angry. Then he swiftly stooped, clutched up a large stone and hurled it away from himself without an obvious target.
“Curse this continuum, curse this prison plane!”
The shout was totally unintelligible to Pi Pluk for it was in a strange tongue.
Turning Man now came shambling towards Pi Pluk still muttering unhappily to himself in the strange language.
“Oh God, must I stay here until I die ?”
His curiosity knew no leash upon witnessing these new developments and as Turning Man passed by  Pi Pluk emerged from his concealment to walk beside him.
“Turning Man.” He said, observing the proper form of address for another.
The long sad face turned towards him and the eyes focused.
“Hello Pi.”
Turning Man rarely observed the proper form of address, it did not seem to occur to him that he should.
“Turning Man, those strange sounds you made, what were they ?”
“Words Pi, real words.”
“I heard no words, only sounds.”
“Sounds become words when you know them.”
“Then what did you say ?”
“Your language has no equivalents for some of my words.” He paused in contemplation for a few moments. “The nearest are these ‘a curse on this existence, a curse on this confining place’.”
“Confining place ?” Pi Pluk echoed.
Turning Man shrugged.
“Your language is primitive, it does not have as many word ideas as my own.”
“Word ideas, what are word ideas ?”
“In my own language they are known as ‘concepts’ Pi.” Turning Man answered in a heavy voice that spoke of great loss.
“Kaaansipts.” Pi tried to emulate, but his mouth did not seem able to shape the strange new word.
“Concept.” Turning Man corrected him. “A ‘concept’ is a word that tells us about its subject, the word itself is not a total description but the ‘concept’ is understood from the word.”
Pi Pluk mentally wrestled with this explanation, a word that did not completely describe something and yet it was complete in itself.

“An example.” Turning Man announced upon seeing his young companions puzzlement.
“What do you see across the valley ?”
“The forest.” Pi Pluk responded immediately.
“And what is the forest, what makes it a forest ?”
“The trees, the berry bushes, grasses.” Pi Pluk answered but saw that Turning Man was waiting for more. “Animals for food, animals to fear, birds for food, other birds, many things.” He concluded.
“The forest is a ‘concept’.” Turning Man said gesticulating with his long thin arms. “The word forest does not even begin to describe all its parts, yet you understand that and accept the single word to mean the wider reality.”
“You cursed this place.” Pi Pluk commented, his interest in ‘concepts’ rapidly waning now that he realised what they were, even though there was no native word.
“Why shouldn’t I ?” Turning Man grumbled. “It is a miserable uncivilised place and it is not my home.”
“Then why do you stay here ?”
Turning Man stopped abruptly and glared down at Pi Pluk, then after a long moment looked away towards the sky. When he looked back down he had tears in his eyes.
“Why am I called Turning Man Pi ?” He asked with unexpected softness in his voice.
“You turn.”
“Yes I turn; when I turn in that place I am trying to return to my home. Somewhere there is a spot, a location where I can turn and be back in my own country, my home.”
“Just by turning ?”
Turning Man rubbed his eyes.
“I will try to explain, come.”

Pi Pluk was more than willing to go with Turning Man to his dwelling just beyond the bounds of the village for few had ever been admitted within its strange walls.
The building was quite unlike the normal dwellings; its roof was not of thatch but a thin hard red stone, at least it looked like stone to Pi. The walls were straight and made of a similar red stones, but what stones, all neat angular repetitions of each other and surrounded by a paler stone that held them against the strongest winds. In the walls were other wonders, openings where there was permanent ice, faintly blue, that never melted even in the heat.
Turning Man strode up to the door of smooth wood and inserted a curiously shaped device into a hole in it and twisted it. Now the door opened easily before them.
“Come in.” Turning Man beckoned Pi Pluk.
The interior was a revelation; objects for which there were no words abounded and even the familiar was made to a strange design.
Turning Man went over to one of these and pulled open a drawer to extract a sheet of rough paper, quill pen and ink. Pi Pluk had no idea what any of these objects were, his was a non literate culture.
Sitting down at the table he gestured for Pi Pluk to sit opposite him. Scrambling up Pi found that he had to kneel on the chair in order to watch, for the table was unnaturally high.
Pi Pluk goggled as Turning Man deftly drew an image of himself and then a much shorter form that was clearly one of the tribe. Reaching over a knife Turning Man cut the paper into two and then made a further cut in each piece. Now he held up the picture of himself.
“This will be my world, my home.”
Then the other image.
“This is your home.”
Pi Pluk looked from one to the other.
“A kaansipt ?” He questioned.
“Yes Pi.” Turning Man laughed with the strange tooth baring gesture that meant amusement. “A concept.”
“You can see your world clearly.”
“Yes.”
“Now.”
As he spoke Turning Man slotted the two drawings together so the Pi Pluks ‘world’ was visible but the other, being edge on, was not.
“You cannot see my world.”
“No.”
“And now.” Turning Man rotated the interlocked sheets so that his portrait faced Pi Pluk.
“I see your world.”
“But not your world.”
“No.” Pi Pluk whispered, this was fascinating.

“This is a very simple way of depicting how your world and mine can exist together and yet be totally unseen by the other.” Turning Man said and deposited the crossed sheets on the table in front of Pi Pluk.
Picking them up he rotated them back and forth then stopped with them at 45o.
“Now I can see them both.” He said. “Can I see them both ?”
“Perhaps at that special location you can see them both. I found that place by accident. I stepped upon it, turned, and found myself in your world.” Turning Man paused and remembered that awesome yet awful moment. “In my surprise I moved away from the entry point without noting its exact location. Now I am lost in your world.”
“You still seek the entry point.” Pi Pluk stated excitedly; he had been right in his supposition.
“Yes.” Turning Man responded morosely.
Pi Pluk turned the images back and forth, Turning Man turned so that he could find his way home. Something hovered at the edge of his recollection, something he had heard that seemed to relate to this strange situation; a story. Yes, a story !
“We must seek the advice of Bryn Agor.” Pi Pluk announced suddenly.
“Your shaman ? What has he to do with this ?” Turning Man asked grumpily.
It was well known in the community that the two were antagonists. Turning Man had achieved many seemingly miraculous things in his time with the community and had, in the early days, attempted to educate them and wean them away from their superstitions. Bryn Agor had been severely aggravated at this testing of his authority over matters miraculous by this abrasive newcomer. But the shaman had not lost his position because he had a singular advantage over Turning Man, he understood his people, their needs and their desires; and if that were not enough he was also a far superior salesman.

“He has knowledge of many matters of the unseen, this reminds me of one of his tellings.”
“Hah ! Just stories Pi, that’s all that old fraud is good for.” Turning Man interrupted rudely.
“Do you truly wish to return to your world ?” Pi Pluk asked with cool dignity.
Turning Man was somewhat taken aback by Pi Pluks question, and he reflected that every avenue should be explored no matter how bizarre.
“I am sorry Pi Pluk, my failure makes me very unhappy and my manners desert me.” Turning Man said contritely.
Pi Pluk nearly stared open mouthed, unforgivably rude, but such was his surprise at Turning Mans most proper apology.
“We are not perfect.” Pi Pluk replied in the correct manner. “Come, Bryn Agor will help us with his telling.” He continued brightly, and scrambled down off the chair still grasping the pair of pictures.
Turning Man did not dawdle, having decided to give this unlikely possibility a chance he was impatient to get on with it. Pi Pluk had to run to keep up with Turning Man’s long stride as he made for the large hut in the centre of the village.
Bryn Agor’s hut was an awesomely decorated hovel, hung with animal skulls and bones, feathers, and desiccated snakes; even the very air about it seemed ‘decorated’ with pungent and unsavoury vapours, it was the very essence of the peoples expectations. Both paused at the low doorway, absolutely correct form had to be observed with the shaman, there was no swift knock and enter into the world of the spirits.

“We who are in darkness seek light.” Pi Pluk intoned gravely.
“Light reveals many faces, beware lest it reveal one that you do not wish to see.” Came a breathy muffled reply.
“We seek the face of truth shunning all others.”
“The face of truth is too heavy a burden for many.”
“Our backs are strong.”
“Then bow yours backs to the burden and enter.”
Pi Pluk adopted the necessary submissive pose and led the way in, Turning Man had to bend double just to get in, but at least it lent him the look of proper respect.
Bryn Agor sat across the hut from them, a low smoky fire of aromatic wood barely illuminating him with its ruddy glow. If he was surprised to see Turning Man he was far too good a showman to reveal it.
“Be welcome here.” He said with an expansive gesture towards a greasy fur rug.
Pi Pluk and Turning Man sat down on it whilst keeping their eyes respectfully down-turned, albeit Turning Man was furtively examining the huts interior from under his bushy eyebrows.
“Strange faces demand strange truths.” Bryn Agor mused softly. “What device do you carry Pi Pluk ?”
Silently Pi Pluk handed over the interlocked drawings. The shaman turned them back and forth in the smoky light and glanced up at Turning Man more than once. The material and the sure hand told him that this was a creation of the outsider, but why this curious method of display ?
“We must seek the revealing light.”
Pi Pluk recognised the invitation to speak.
“Turning Man seeks his path home. This shows his world and our world, when in our world his world cannot be seen and he is lost.”

Bryn Agor surreptitiously re-examined the drawings, yes, in one position only one figure could be seen, then both, then the other. He closed his eyes and drew in deep breaths of the fragrant smoke, he knew now why Pi Pluk had come, a remembered telling. He could have simply recalled it, but a good shaman never did anything without a good trance first.
Turning Man recognised the act, but he hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible, this could be a long session.
After long minutes rocking erratically whilst uttering mystic words Bryn Agor suddenly sat bolt upright, his eyes wide and luminous.
“In all the lands where we have walked we have seen all that was before us. Yet all about us move the unseen and we do not have the eyes to see them.”
His words entranced Pi Pluk, but then that was to be expected, they also caused Turning Man to draw in a sharp breath and that pleased the shaman immensely.
“Those with the power may see the unseen, for those with the power can release the vision from within the spirit stone, and see with its ever open eye.”
His mystic pronouncement uttered Bryn Agor slumped and drew in a shuddering breath. The telling had gone well; the very air now seemed charged with excitement. Across the fire Turning Mans piercing stare was locked onto the shaman, very bad manners, but such was the outsiders way.
The spirit stone, it could only be at one place, the gateway.
“Pi Pluk, would you wait outside ?” Turning Man requested.
The tone was so imperative, despite its high squeaky pitch that Pi Pluk exited without demur, respectfully bowing backwards out of the door.
The two now faced each other across the fire, will testing will.
“You know what I seek.” Turning Man said in a low voice.
“The place between.” Bryn Agor answered him enigmatically.
A slow feral grin spread across Turning Mans pale face, the shaman shuddered inwardly at its menacing intensity.
“Will you show me this place ?”
“If the spirits will it.”
“I think the spirits will be most willing.”
“Perhaps.”
“Especially if I were to step between and never return.”
The shamans furry face showed a distinct tightening of the hidden cheeks, a smile, the bargain had been struck.
“Perhaps the spirits will open the way between and reclaim your wandering soul.”
Turning Man slowly rose to his feet.
“I can feel them pulling at me even now.”
Such a good telling Bryn Agor reflected as he too rose; Turning Man would leave and he would have no challenger to his authority, indeed most profitable.

Both emerged into the gathering evening and with the shaman in the lead they headed away into the darkness. Heads turned to follow the strange procession but no one dared to follow uninvited, except Pi Pluk, and he hadn’t been told by the shaman to stay behind. Nearing the open ground where Turning Man performed his strange nightly ritual, the shaman slowed and began to sight on several distant features. A triangular rock, a hilltop, a gully. He moved further to his right and paused to resight and then moved forward purposefully. Six, seven, eight paces, stopped and then settled on the damp grass. Turning Man and Pi Pluk came up on either side of him as he leant forward and smoothed back the grass to reveal a bright green orb. A few of the stalks flicked back upright and through this shining vision of a piece of another reality.
Turning Man made to step onto the globe but the shaman’s upraised arm stopped him.
“Patience rewards us.” He intoned with just the right blend of authority and ceremony.
Reluctantly Turning Man sat down beside him to wait for his opportunity to go home.
As the last of the daylight leaked away from the sky the true face of the spirit stone was revealed, for it was a fracture in the fabric of  spacetime that extended up towards the star filled heavens. A narrow cylinder in which an oddly condensed view of other dimensions could be seen when examined at close range.

“Hear now the wisdom of the spirit stone.” Bryn Agor said in a husking whisper.
“Over the stone we may glimpse the spirit worlds, the worlds where the unseen move about us. At this place they may also see and hear us.” He paused dramatically. “We must not disturb them or they may come bringing all manner of ill.”
Turning Man looked sideways at the shaman expecting to be the focus of the last statement but his attention was on the vision above the stone. Then as though aware of the others scrutiny he turned to face him.
“Choose your entry with care Turning Man, there are more spirit worlds than you know and not all are as benign as ours is to the traveller.”
Turning Man was taken aback by this; it was certain that Bryn Agor had stood on the stone and seen that which lay beyond his own dimension, possibly even walked in those unseen lands.
Standing up Turning Man began a slow circuit of the portal, and almost opposite the shaman and the wide eyed Pi Pluk, he noted that the scene was identical to that seen in the portal. Having marked the ground he continued round for another 900 and came to the scene he dared to dream of, his own world. Retracing his steps to his mark he carefully aligned himself to enter the gateway and be free at last.
“All these years, you have known of this place.” He addressed the shaman bitterly. “All these years I never asked you.” He concluded with a shake of his head.
He felt in his garment and pulled out the key to his home. For a moment he held it up before him then tossed it over to the shaman.
“All yours.”
A hairy hand flashed out from the heavy fur robes that swathed the shaman and the glinting metal disappeared within the clasping fingers.
“Goodbye Pi Pluk, my thanks go with you always.” Turning Man said most properly and favoured him with the tooth baring that was a smile.
He stepped onto the stone and began to turn. To Pi Pluk it seemed that Turning Man became thinner still and, as in his drawing, he became invisible.
The shaman gently moved the grass back over the stone and then standing up he walked away without a backward glance. Reluctantly Pi Pluk rose and trailed after him, but turned back after a few paces to see the portal once more. But it had gone from sight, and strain as he might he could not see any trace of it.

Bryn Agor laid no conditions on Pi Pluk, for he knew that the lad would not speak to anyone else about this nights events. It was a spirit matter and only the foolish, or the very wise, spoke of such things. So Pi Pluk went home his head filled with the images of the spirit stone and of Turning Man turning for the final time, but his tongue was stilled.
Later that night when all were safely asleep, a shadowy figure went out to the open ground and moved several stones. Then gathering armfuls of dry brush made its way back into the village.
By mornings light the black and smoking remains of Turning Mans house drew wondering looks from the people of the village, but no comment, for in the ground before it was the shaman’s mark. Only one person approached the ruin to poke about in the ashes, Pi Pluk, and he came away apparently empty handed.
In a quiet place in the woods Pi Pluk examined the only trace of Turning Man that was left, a little fragment of the ice that did not melt. He could see strange patterns within it as he turned it in the light; it reminded him of the spirit stone, the gateway to the unseen worlds, and of Turning Man, now one of those unseen.